I used to like driving. I liked speeding up on the freeway entrances, finding my way around town with a GPS, exploring new nearby cities for new ice cream places and waving to people as they graciously let me into their lane, or I let them into mine.
I used to like driving. Until I moved to Provo.
It feels like every day I see something, hear something or read something about an accident that happened on these college town roads. And I’m not saying that it’s everyone else’s fault—we’re all to blame. But I will say this: being around bad drivers often makes you a bad driver yourself.
I would like to think that I’m a good driver. But after so many times of people not letting me in, turning in front of me, blowing through red lights, not using their blinkers or speeding to get ahead of pedestrians, I think I’m safe to say that I’ve not only gotten worse, but I’ve also gotten nervous.
I know people make mistakes—we’ve all had those moments when you go to turn left when you see a gap, then double guess yourself and slam on your breaks, shamefully backing up as you apologetically wave the other cars forward. We’ve all miscalculated a yellow light and just barely scraped into the intersection before it turns red. We’ve all had to make a quick turn where we’ve forgotten to turn on our blinkers. We’ve all waited long enough in front of a crosswalk of college students to desperately pull out when there’s a 15 foot gap between one backpack and the next.
This article is not to tell people (including myself) to be perfect drivers—I know that’s hard and accidents happen. I mainly wish to ask the residents of Utah County to be careful, to not take risks that they don’t need to take, to be courteous, to be patient, to obey the law and to allow more time to get places. Even in small towns, driving a car means you put a huge responsibility on your shoulders to protect not only yourself but those around you. Remember, a decision made on the road doesn’t just affect you.
In the past week and a half I’ve had two cars run the same red light (they would’ve hit me if I hadn’t noticed they weren’t slowing down), I’ve had two people miss protected left turns (they just…didn’t go, even though I honked!) because they were looking down at their phones and I’ve had people unconsciously drift into my lane, causing me to swerve.
Like I said before, accidents happen. But please! Let us slow down, pay attention and be the responsible people that we claim to be when we hold that driver’s license.
Because of the things that I’ve seen and the things that have happened or almost happened to me, I have become a lot more nervous and I’ve become more apt to second guess myself. The way you drive affects the way we drive, and vice versa. Please, don’t drive dumb.
