Shiny, Wheeled Signs of the Times

I've heard it said (and/or written) in many places, that one's driving shows a great deal of their personality. If this is so, and I believe I have written this before, Grande Prairie and the local area is home to one HELL of a lot of self centered, ignorant, impatient and outright dangerous people. At the very least, people seem to have forgotten they are operating a machine that can take lives in an instant.

Every day I am amazed that the news is not filled with stories of driving fatalities (yet bad driving takes multitudes of lives every year...do the research) but even the amount that I do hear makes me sick to the stomach at the thought of taking a life or lives by any sort of negligence behind the wheel. Yet so many others seem oblivious to this, even ripping through school zones or performing multiple tasks OTHER than focusing on the road all while hurtling along well beyond the speed limit.

But here a young family is snuffed while about to turn off to their rural home, there an old man snapped out of existence by one of countless youths obviously too immature for such responsibilities. Although, in fairness, many much older than he are no more mature, as is evidenced by the lack of ability to learn from the mistakes of others.

And it just seems to be getting worse. I feel ridiculous saying this but I remember a time when it seemed that when most people would make an honest mistake in driving, they would make some attempt to show the offended driver that they knew their mistake, felt bad, and would learn from the mistake. Just a couple of days ago I saved a young woman from getting t-boned by seeing a glimpse of her approaching and assuming she was going to blindly dart across in front of me in her little car. She did so and if I hadn't slowed enough, I'd have plowed right into her. She didn't even look at me, just peered straight ahead as if she'd done nothing stupid and dangerous at all.

And then, of course, there are the cell phones...

I think by now, most must be aware of the spike in road idiocy thanks to people talking, texting, surfing, gaming, reading and god knows what else on their phones while driving. So since people seem unable to use common sense in enough numbers so as to not be significantly dangerous to each other, governments are creating laws such as the distracted driving law here in Alberta. Now we can at least make some extra money off some of the idiots who get caught, as with speeding drunk driving laws. But what chance that a real impact in terms of safe driving will be made?

Not much, methinks.

*sigh*

Oh well. Please drive safe and be good to each other.