One of my pet peeves is people who lay on their horn within a second of the traffic light turning green when the first car doesn’t move. I take pride in patiently waiting and not honking in those instances.
That said, I frequently become overly frustrated with dangerous drivers… those F-150s and Ram 1500s that dodge in and out of traffic on the freeway. My reaction is typically, “Look at how that guy’s driving. What an idiot!” Then I feel my stress-level rising.
This week we moved out of our house after 24 years for a few months to remodel. After the heavy lifters from Three Men Movers unloaded our furniture and big items into a storage unit, I made several trips there with the more delicate and fragile things.
Tired from days of packing and hauling, and having dropped off the final load, I made the u-turn below the freeway onto the access road that leads into our neighborhood. As I cleared the turn, I saw a car turning right on red coming toward me. Although we were never in danger of colliding, he decided to emphatically let me know I had not seen him – speeding up to get right behind me, then hitting his horn for about 10 seconds.
Three minutes later after pulling safely into our driveway, I had a revelation. While it was still a jerky, road rage move, I realized he had no idea what we’d gone through the past few days or how tired I was… just as I never know what’s going on in another driver’s life.
At that moment I decided to take a new approach when someone drives dangerously. Simply say: “I hope they don’t hurt anyone and get wherever they’re going safely.” They’ll still do what they do; however, I’ll feel a lot better afterward.
