Bad Drivers

There is an intersection about half mile from where I live, that I believe is dangerous. It is a four way stop. The problem is that many people do not think that the stop sign applies to them or they do not know what stop means. Just yesterday my sister and I stopped and turned left. We were in the middle of the turn when a driver coming from the opposite direction and did not stop, he does not even do a “California roll.” He gets about a third of the way through the intersection when he decides that he does not want to hit us and then stops.

Like most cities in the United States the one I live in is strapped for cash. I believe that is partially because of mismanagement of funds, but that is a topic for another time. All they need to do is have a police officer sit at this intersection and wait. Either the city would start getting some much needed income or the drivers would start obeying the laws.

While I am on the topic of obeying the law, why do so many drivers tailgate? Do not they know that the leading cause of traffic accidents is tailgating? I know there are some slow drivers out there, I have been behind my share, but tailgating to get them going faster is just a dumb move. What if the person has to break suddenly, there is not enough space between the driver being tailgated and the driver that is tailgating. Then the tailgater is cited and his or insurance will increase or the insurance could drop coverage (especially if this is not first time the driver has been cited.) Not to mention the probability of injury to both drivers and or their passengers. Was that really worth the extra 5-10 minutes the driver could have saved? I do not think so.

Many are tailgating trailer trucks. Now how stupid is that, are they thinking that they are going to intimidate the truck driver into speeding up.? I can see the thought process now: “If you do not get out of my way I am going to ram you with my sports utility vehicle.” Obviously these people must not know Newton’s Third Law of Motion: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Or for every force there is a reaction force that is equal in size and opposite in direction. So if the driver of the suv is going 75 mph and hits that truck trailer the result will be—you will be lucky to come out of the crash alive. But more than likely the driver of the trailer truck will fare much better. So breathe and relax and leave some extra room between you and the driver in front of you.