The last time I checked, unless you are accompanied by sirens, a red light means stop. One afternoon, I was the first car stopped at a red light. The driver behind me, not accompanied by sirens, evidently didn’t think the red light pertained to him. I looked behind me only to find him pass me on my left, entering the opposite lane of traffic, in order to blow through the red light of a very busy Quincy intersection. My jaw dropped open and the name Wake Up, Slow Down and Get Back to Your Senses was born.
That incident happened the day after my mother was in a car accident, she was ok, her car didn’t fare as well. In short, driver A blew through a stop sign, clipped a Suburban that hit the front driver’s side of my mom’s car. Her car was totaled. Thankfully she wasn’t.
What is with people? From what I’ve seen people are asleep to life - their own and the lives of others. How often do you see someone driving while texting, drinking coffee, talking on the phone, shaving, putting on make up, or reading a map, newspaper, I’ve even seen people reading books. One morning during rush hour I was driving the middle lane of the highway, traffic was moving on either side of me and I wondered why I was going 40 behind the SUV in front of me. As I passed on the left I looked right to see the cause of the slow down. The woman in the SUV had her interior light on with a big pad of paper leaning on her steering wheel, as she wrote. Wrote what I wondered, her novel? Notes for her morning meeting? Wake up earlier or do it before you go to bed. But driving and writing is not cool.
Another afternoon Michael and I were heading home, I looked out my window and noticed a woman next to us with one hand wrapped around her Dunkin Donuts coffee cup and the other holding her cell phone to her ear. I shouted “Who is holding the steering wheel!” Scary situations.
If you are driving please, stop multi-tasking. Just drive. It’s safer and it shows more respect to those around you. Are you in a rush to get to the hospital? Slow and steady does win the race. Instead of thinking of the car as your “catch up” time, consider it your quiet “me” time. That time you crave so much. Keep the phone off, the call can wait to a safer time. Especially if the other hand is holding your coffee. Save the novel for the corner coffee shop.
Technology is ruining society. Constant connection to things rather than people is running us around in circles. Wake up, slow down and get back to your senses. If you’re driving, just drive.
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