To the man in the old green Chevy truck,
I am sorry that I decided not to tailgate the person in front of me as I turned left at the intersection, thus shaving valuable seconds off your travel time. I am also sorry that I stopped and signaled to turn left into the gas station so that you could not keep speeding on down the street. I am sorry that I instead chose to wait until the path was clear as I had my baby in the van and was not interested in hurting either her or myself or dealing with the headache that crashing my van would have caused. Were the 35 seconds that I cut off your travel time really worth all the honking? Were those few seconds really worth the rise in blood pressure and stress on your heart? Was it worth the angry glare you gave me as you drove by? Why are we as people in such a hurry anyway. As soon as somebody is going 49 in a 50 zone, why do we get all angry and impatient? When it takes somebody more than .2 seconds to go on a green light why do we start honking and ask “Is there any particular shade of green you are waiting for?” (quote from a friends uncle). Why do we not instead enjoy our drives and give our hearts and blood pressure a rest? Is the five minutes we would have saved worth the extra stress we cause ourselves? Is it worth the possible ticket we may get for speeding or reckless driving? Is it worth the accident we may end up in? Either of those will add more than 5 minutes to our time. Please think next time you are driving. Had you hit me or the black truck you almost swerved into because I wasn’t going quite fast enough for you, it would have added much more than 35 seconds to your travel time.
From, a mom who is learning that impatience on the road isn’t worth it and wanting to be a good example to my daughter who is watching everything I do.
