Mine was the middle car of three traveling at about 45 miles per hour. We neared a single lane bridge like the one pictured below. In the opposite direction a lone car speeds up. The best that he could hope for was to squeeze in between my car and the one behind me.
Not much of a prize.
I had just crossed the bridge as the oncoming car whizzed by. Glancing at my rear view mirror, I could see it coming.
“Oh, no,” I mouthed. “Too close.”
The cars met at the bridge.
Bam!
Tiny pieces of glass and plastic flew into the air as their side mirrors vanished.
“What an ass!”
The vehicle behind me slowed as the aggressor’s car disappeared around the bend.
A nanosecond gained, and it only cost him a side mirror.
The car behind me turned around in the narrow road to give chase. I hope he caught him.
The aggressor has earned a butt-kicking.
My round-trip commute is over 160 miles each day, so I’ve seen a lot of strange behavior on the roads. Speeders, weavers, and tailgaters are the norm. Toss distracted drivers into the mix, and we are left with roads that are much more dangerous than they ought to be.
I don’t know what happens to some people when they get behind the wheel. So many of them seem to risk lives on a daily basis with little thought of how devastating a crash can be – for the innocent as well as the guilty.
A blown tire, an animal on the road, a heart attack – these are legitimate causes of accidents.
There should be another word for crashes that are caused by aggressive drivers doing reckless things. Calling these accidents makes them seem like unintentional happenings. In this case, the aggressive driver may not have intended to collide with the car he was cutting off, but he did everything in his power to ensure that they would meet at the bridge.
More than just negligence, that driver displayed a wanton disregard for safety.
If you have a tendency to risk your life on meaningless games of chicken, please, spare other drivers the experience of playing your idiotic games and find a sturdy utility pole to wrap your car around.
The rest of us want to live.
Author Bio:
Ray Colon has written 136 posts on Ray's Blog.
He works with numbers for a living, but don't judge - boring accountants need love too. His blog has no niche (unless writing about things that are important to him is a niche). Some folks cringe when he gets “all political” on them, but he does it anyway when he's in that kind of mood. Sometimes, he writes something nice about someone, but you shouldn't get used to that. His first book, the one he hasn't written yet, is not available on Amazon. Subscribe to Ray's Blog via RSS or Email.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
yes.
Most car collisions are NOT accidents: They could clearly have been avoided. The local traffic reporters here have taken to pointing that out on-air and always call them wrecks or crashes, not accidents.
Hi Alicia,
Yes, that’s more accurate – referring to these incidents as wrecks or crashes. I haven’t noticed a similar change in verbiage in my local coverage. I’ll listen closely the next time I catch the local news to see if they have. Ray
Most drivers are crazy. I don’t know why. And most car issues are not accidents. It’s like people get behind the wheel and either enter their own world or they suddenly become the lead in an action packed movie the rest of us can’t see. People need car signs. http://piquantstoryteller.blogspot.com/2010/01/car-signs.html
Hi Tristan,
The behavior of many drivers is crazy, so maybe they are living out some fantasy that we can’t see. That would make as much sense as: “running late” or “had a bad day” for explaining their recklessness. The dangerous situations that they create send a shudder down my spine when I see near misses almost daily. Failures to merge properly, erratic lane changes, and especially tailgating make me shake my head. I’m one of those guys who will slow down if I’m tailgated. I won’t allow them to push me around. They eventually pass me and take their craziness elsewhere. Ray
Reckless drivers cause CRASHES, not accidents. I read your post and hoped that reckless driver you mentioned was caught and taught a lesson, but probably not. Sometimes it seems the guilty don’t pay and the innocent pay and pay and pay. . .
You’re right, they are crashes, and they are very frightening. With a teen driver at home, crazy drivers are my greatest fear.
The road that they were traveling on leads to a small town with a 30 MPH limit that is strictly enforced. Hopefully, the victim was able to get the attention of the police who always seem to be on patrol there. Ray