People In Cars Going Places

Something strange happens when human beings climb into their motorized boxes and start on down the road...they become themselves.  Not just themselves, but the truest part of themselves.  This is where the rage, impatience, jealousy, hostility and seemingly lack of consequence are at their most potent.  For some reason people feel safe in their driving cubes to become the worst parts of humanity.  All at once!

I've barely touched the surface on how terrible people become behind the wheel and I feel like I've seen the worst the ego can do.  Everything from swearing, screaming tantrum fits to near collisions because someone felt wronged and someone else was in a hurry.  Why do we adopt this behavior immediately upon entering our vehicles?  I can see you flipping me off through this thing called a 'windshield.'  Is it because the consequences of our actions are easily sped away from any sort of recourse?  I wouldn't dream of swearing in someones face on the sidewalk cuz they stepped in front of me.  I wouldn't dare run up behind someone as fast as I could, step directly in front of them and then walk so slowly they had to lurch to a halt, causing them to shake their head in bewilderment and dismay.  I would never bi-pass three parallel lines of people waiting for, let's say food, scream my order at the poor server and bottleneck the line.  Then learn that by me butting ahead, I caused everyone else's food to be held up and delivered cold and that we all got the food at the exact same time anyway!  How ridiculous the world would be if that's how we behaved when we left our homes and went out into the world.  So why do we accept this behavior at speeds that cause more death than any other means?

We act as though we have entered an impenetrable force-field where no harm will come to us no matter how terrible we act.  I can be witness to an asshole but I can't catch him so it's ok that he's an asshole and nearly ran me off the road?  On a side-note, women drivers are just as big as assholes as our male counterparts.

Driving stresses me out.  That's inaccurate.  Drivers, stress me out.  I can't trust that the other people around me aren't going to go mental and do something that severely injures or kills me.  Failing that, I find such exorbitant amounts of tension arise from maneuvering around angry drivers, unskilled drivers, distracted drivers.  A man this afternoon attempted to pass me on a one lane bridge while texting and speeding.  If I hadn't of been paying attention to his recklessness, I could have been smushed.  Or if I had taken some kind of offense to his ridiculous and harmful behavior and sped up to prevent him from overtaking me, I would have been smushed undoubtedly.  I don't want to be smushed.  No one wants to be smushed.  No one wants to be honked at, tail-gated, or forced into a near miss with some entitled dick who thinks his car space is more integral than yours.  Perhaps that's the ticket.  We feel that owning our car means we own the space around the car.  When our car bubble space is interfered with, we lose our minds.  It's like personal space but at break-neck speeds and with a thousand pounds of metal and fiberglass at our fingertips.

I also think that driving has been made so easy, we quickly forget the dire consequences if bubbles collide.  We forget that speed directly affects live or death.  How irresponsible we've become with such a wonderful and efficient gift.  All awareness and compassion for others lost.  Only selfish need to get somewhere on time remains.  I for one am going to do my best not to let the ease of my travel means affect how I treat the rest of the world.  I'm already part of the problem, why exacerbate it so?  We're all in this together people and your car cannot forever shield you from the eventuality of cause and effect.