America is arguably the birth location of the modern car. It is the country with the biggest and baddest motors and vehicles. Yet, it is also home to some of the worst drivers. We as Americans have become lazy drivers.
The industrial age brought to America cars and nice open roads to drive them on. The 1940s saw automatic automobiles get introduced to the market. Drivers no longer needed to learn how to operate a car. Combine that with our fairly straight roads, we began creating generations of lazy drivers. People who take driving for granted.
The problem with this is along with lazy drivers come lazy habits and disregard for driving etiquette and road rules. Personally, I enjoy driving, very much. I counted the days until I could legally drive and when I finally received my license, my main condition was that my vehicle house a manual transmission. Driving a manual car is like listening to a live symphony play a Lord Of The Rings film score. The highs the lows, the vibration of the sound through your body. I digress though. Back to the topic in hand, lazy drivers. People have become selfish in society and sharing the road with these drivers you see this accentuated even more so. One of my biggest pet peeves on the road are left lane hogs. Now for those who don’t know, the left lane, by law, is the passing lane. This is a law seldom, if ever, enforced. What it basically says is you are to drive on the right most lane unless passing another vehicle. If there are 3 lanes, then you would stay to the right most lane and use the middle lane to pass unless there is someone already using that lane to pass someone in which case you would then use the left lane. And so on so forth with roads that have more than 3 lanes. But many people don’t follow this. They hog the left lane forcing drivers to pass on the right side which is dangerous or even worse drive at the same pace as someone on the right lane which doesn’t allow to pass at all. That is just plain selfishness right there. Now you might argue that people shouldn’t be driving fast anyway but I’ve been witness to people driving below the speed limit on the left lane. Plus you don’t know why a person may be speeding. Maybe they are late for an important event or work, maybe they are having a personal emergency or a dozen other reasons for which someone may speed. Maybe that person just likes to drive fast. Either way it is courteous to let them through or just use the right lane. I’m not saying you have to drive faster, by all means drive at a pace that is comfortable to you but do it on the right lane. As long as you’re not doing 40 on a highway in which case, why use a highway, just take local roads.
A cause of this is also because people don’t use their mirrors regularly. Please be aware of your surroundings at all times drivers. For others safety, but more importantly for your own safety too. Most passenger vehicles have 3 mirrors, your left and right mirrors and your rear view mirror. Use them! Not just when you need to. Use them regularly, you should be checking your mirrors at least once every few seconds to a minute. Also, properly adjust your mirrors so that you can get a full view around your vehicle. Many driving manuals will advise you to aim your side mirrors so that you can just barely see the side of your vehicle. That is actually not the best way to have your mirrors because you overlap what you can see with your rear view and diminish your viewing area. The best way to have your mirrors set up is to first adjust your rear view to your liking where it gets a full, clear view out the back window and then adjust your side mirrors so that only a very small area overlaps with your rear view.
Below are some other tips for driving etiquette.
- Scoot over in the lane when turning. If you’re making a left make sure you are as far left as you can go in your lane so that other cars behind you can drive around you without having to wait for you excellency to turn. Turning right also applies. It’s upsetting when drivers come to a near complete stop in the middle of the lane to make a turn forcing everyone behind them to slow down to the same speed.
- When in traffic DO NOT block the intersections. If the light is green and there is no room for you to pass the intersection, wait for the road ahead to clear and open up before driving ahead. It’s annoying when drivers are greedy and end up getting stuck in the middle of the intersection because the light turns red. Now you are causing more traffic and making other drivers wait for you.
These are only a few of the small things we can all do to keep traffic flowing and share the road with other drivers. If you feel I’ve left any other tips out please write them below in the comments.
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