Why won't people pay attention while driving?

Bladecutter
Fri, 11 Feb 2011 21:15:29 +0000
Driving/Drivers

Thursday night, on my way home from work, I got to witness the most pointless incident I’ve seen transpire on the road in front of me for quite a while.

Earlier this week, here in Colorado, we got about half a foot of snow in the Denver area. Not too much, but it always brings out the stupid in drivers.

On the road I drive home, Highway 93, it runs North/South, and is right next to the Foothills of the Rockies. There is a huge amount of open plains on both sides of the highway, so when the wind picks up, the snow gets blown back onto the highway, and tends to freeze in all sorts of various area.

So, here I am, driving along, behind a pack of vehicles, and I realize that the road conditions are less than stellar, so I open up more space with the cars in front of me, because, sooner or later, someone is going to slam on their brakes for no real reason, whatsoever.

And not more than 10 seconds after I open up the space in front of me, does a panel truck 6 vehicles ahead, have its brake lights light up. Almost instantly, a silver Jeep Liberty shoots right, onto the shoulder of the road, and plunges into the snow drift into the ditch, and comes to a stop, listing to the right.

Now, there were no turns, or driveways for the truck to want to turn into on this section of road, and it is straight as an arrow. There wasn’t any traffic in front of the truck, so no real reason for it to slam on its brakes, but it did anyway.

But the real question is why couldn’t the lady in the Jeep have been paying more attention to the driving at hand instead of whatever it was she was doing when she decided to plunge into the snowy abyss instead of applying the brakes, and leaving enough space in front of her to safely slow down?

No one else on the road in front of me reacted the way she did, and all of us were able to safely pass her by as she sat on the side of the road, cellphone next to her ear, as her wheels pointlessly churned away, while she pointlessly attempted to unstick herself from the ditch.

And is it wrong for me to have no sympathy for her situation?

BC.

22 posts - 17 participants