OK this is more of a confession than a blog. Today I was a very bad driver. I need to be spanked…alright, enough of my weird fetishes. I was speeding and weaving in and out of traffic on the freeway like a running back dodging the Dallas Cowboys defense (which would be pretty easy to do.) I was in a hurry to teach a defensive driving class. I know, “isn’t it ironic?” I was running late and my natural reaction was to speed, right? Isn’t that what you do when you are running late? Now I’m not trying to rationalize what I did but at least I wasn’t talking on the cell phone and I used my blinkers when I was cutting people off.
Speeding is a major cause of motor vehicle collisions in the United States, I’m sure you already knew that. But, did you know that most crashes occur as a direct result of people driving too slow? Yes, you slow, Sunday drivers need to get the hell out of the way! I’m not suggesting you speed up to 90mph! You speed demons need to slow down to a reasonable speed, like the speed limit or maybe 5 over, only highly trained drivers like race car drivers and defensive driving instructors can handle the situation with precision driving techniques and acute awareness to the decision making skills needed to pull this off! It’s not the speed that is dangerous, it’s the things that get in your way that causes the danger, like other cars, animals, pedestrians and trees that seems to jump onto the road out of nowhere! Drivers who drive too slow on a highway entrance ramp or driving too slow in the left lane are the cause of major traffic jams due to crashes, which in turn cost you in fuel economy, when you are sitting idle in gridlock.
Last year in the U.S. 33,808 people were killed in crashes and over 2.2 million people injured. Hey, slow down a little bit, don’t be in such a hurry, it’s better to be late than to be dead, right?! Now I need to take my own advice and be a better driver by slowing down and not eating Burger King while driving. Join me again next week and until then…
Take care and be safe-
Danny Keaton