I used to love driving in bad weather. As crazy as it sounds, I think I preferred it because it meant that there were usually significantly less people on the roadways and I could sort of have the roads to myself. However, I no longer feel this way because since I have moved to North Carolina from New York, I have found that there are more people who occupy the roads no matter what time of day or what kind of weather is occurring. This is the perfect recipe for disaster.
When the weather is bad out, you are supposed to take the proper precautions while driving so as to ensure the safety of you, the passengers within your vehicle as well as the other people who are on the road around you driving. However, I am not so sure in fact, I know that there are other drivers out there who don t even give this a second thought. Last night, I was on my way to New York from North Carolina and it was starting to drizzle a little. To top it off, it was dark out when this driver in a minivan decided to create his own lane by driving around traffic in what was supposed to be a merge lane while doing at least 85 miles per hour (I know this because I was doing 80 miles per hour as was the traffic around me). What if the driver that he was trying to get around saw what he was doing but couldn t make sense of it. Then, as a jerk reaction, they maneuvered their vehicle in such a way that it caused a major accident? Who would be at fault then?
People don t think when they are the driver of a vehicle. Granted, there are plenty of good drivers out there, but lately, I feel as if that number is getting smaller and smaller as people are beginning to think that the roads were built for people of their nature, and anyone else simply shouldn t be driving on it. I am ashamed to admit that I used to think this way as well. Before gas prices were so high and I was still getting things paid for by either one of my parents, I was somewhat reckless when it came to driving. My main problem was speeding. And while plenty of my friends and associates were getting nipped by the local police, I was still zipping along. For instance, if someone was doing less than 70 miles per hour on the local highway, I would almost instantly get annoyed. Multiply the annoyance factor by 10 if they happened to find themselves in front of me in the far left lane, deemed the fast lane or lane for passing.
Since then, I have certainly calmed down my wacky driving tendencies (mostly because I am paying for my own gasoline and vehicle expenses), but it still shocks me to see people speeding, following too closely, driving without their lights on and not using their turn signals and/or windshield wipers when it is raining or snowing outside. Don t they care about their safety? It makes me wonder whether I cared enough about mine back then.