It's a good ad and presents something to ponder about not just about things on the road. A couple of points I make about safe driving.
- Just because you can drive fast doesn't mean that you are a good driver.
- And because you are a good driver doesn't mean the other person isn't an idiot.
Of course, both drivers could have averted the accident. The driver who was speeding should have seen the car at the crossroad and slowed down. The driver at the stop sign could have waited until the other car had passed.
Actually, make that should have waited until the other car had passed.
Was the accident caused because one, or both, of them were in too much of a hurry?
Anyway, there are lessons here which are appropriate to things other than driving.
I leave you with this poem from a Charles Pelkey story about road rage.
Here lies the body of George O'Day.
He died maintaining his right of way.
He was right, dead right as he rode along,
But he is just as dead as if he were wrong.
It was not an accident. It was negligence on both parts. That's when people and children die.
ReplyDeleteThis is a nice public service announcement. It might make sense in Southern California if both drivers were in their eighties. It's a video demolition derby. It's not just young or male drivers either. Often the worse drivers have a nice head of grey hair or children in the car. The main thing that these drivers have in common is a complete lack of any fear that an accident could ever happen to them. I often marvel why there are not more accidents. I guess the only conclusion is that the vehicles are expensive, high-performance and highly maneuverable. The scariest thing is that a lot of drivers here are constantly racing as if they were in a Grand Prix, Daytona or Indianapolis race. They are constantly passing each and every car as if their life depended on it, jockeying for position. forming grudges against other drivers for perceived slights and racing with other vehicles as if for some prize. Anyone who is not paying careful enough attention to the race may simply change lanes, fail to brake for a car that is cutting them off or in countless other ways simply not realize that they were in the center of a life or death contest and by so doing fail to live up to the standards of the other racers. Another thing that really scares me is drivers who are willing to play chicken, anytime day or night with any driver who would dare challenge their sovereignty. They literally will challenge a more cautious driver to take it to the point of no return. Most of us go ahead and hit the brake rather than be involved in a crash.
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