What are your intentions?

Wow, busy busy busy.  I’ve been on the road every day for a couple of weeks trying to get my brain around a new product.  I’m still having fun learning.  A side benefit from working with new people is you get to watch a new set of working styles and I always pick up new tips and tricks.

I don’t know about your car, but mine has this little stick on one side of the steering column.  It’s really cool and makes this whole driving thing go so much smoother.  You see, when I want to move my car from one lane to another or say do something radical like make a turn from one street to another, I can move the position of that stick.  From there some really cool electrical things happen and a light on the outside of my car (on the side that matches the direction I am moving) begins to flash.  Apparently all the other drivers have been told what this means and it makes them aware that I’m about to do something that will change the configuration of the environment around them.

Wow, that’s something huh.  What they can do with this newfangled technology!

All kidding aside, from my observation the turn signal must be broken in 30% of all vehicles.  For the 70% remaining, half of them treat the device as an afterthought.  I’ve tried to imagine what process these drivers must be following and I’ve broken it down into a couple groups.

1. Some operate the signal by dangling a spare finger off the wheel as they turn, thereby tripping the turn signal as the wheel goes round.  The net result is that their tires hit the lane stripes about the same time the signal lights up.  I think of these folks as either people obsessed with drinking tea in the proper English fashion or who when driving silently recite the mantra “10 and 2, 10 and 2“. Either way, I notice that their wheels are in the new location long before I notice that they bothered to signal.
2. Our next group of folks manages to get the turn signal engaged but then forget to disengage it after they have completed their turn.  I have two worries when maneuvering my car past someone in this state (and yes I have done this from time to time myself, and yes the comments I’m about to make applies to me during these times as well).  The first is of course, are they simply being ultra-prepared and “vehiclularly verbose” by turning their signal on 11 miles before their turn?  If that’s the case then I should hang back and let them do what they need.  My second concern is, are they actually asleep at the wheel and I just happened to catch them at the moment before they go careening across all lanes of travel and testing airbag deployments for multiple makes and models?
3. Lastly, and frankly the one that freaks me out the most is the driver that signals in one direction and then turns the other.  What do I say here?  I imagine that the potential for this to occur to any random sample driver is greater than zero but I’ve watched drivers do it repeatedly over the course of a 10 mile stretch of road!  I know there are many reasons that this might occur and a few of them, dyslexia included, are out of the driver’s control.  All that aside, if you have trouble telling right from left you shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car.

Now of course I haven’t mentioned the raging ass-hat who flies through traffic as if the rest of us were simply placed there as convenient obstacles to make his drive more entertaining.  You know, like the gates a skier avoids during a race.  Hey, if you hit one or two, it just slows you down and deducts a few points from your final score right?

 This is another place where our thought process and value system interacts with the world in evident ways. It’s a big part of what makes commuting so stressful. We have the ability to impact on another’s life severely when driving a car. I would venture to say it’s like nothing else that we do. You are in control of a couple thousand pounds of metal, traveling at speeds fast enough that (particularly when combined) create enough force to rip the human body to pieces. It’s dangerous enough when you factor in the occasional inattention or delayed reflexes that occur to all of us. When you layer selfishness and stupidity on top it becomes tragic.

 People living in proximity of one another are going to rough each other up now and then. It’s the nature of the place we live in. We all have different clarifying moments that teach us to see the impression we leave on one another, but I think most of us get there. Some seem to never find the top of the arc when they swing wildly. Even harder to understand are those that seem to enjoy flailing about. You learn to spot those folks and hopefully steer clear of them but it’s harder to do as the speed increases.

 Don’t drive angry, drive weird!

 PS: Saw a bumper sticker and had to share – “Stupid Kills, but not enough to really help”. It made me giggle, I couldn’t help it.