Essay #2

      It's been pouring rain all day, and the clock hits 8 PM as I'm driving down a two-lane road on my way to pick up something for dinner. The headlights from cars, street lights and business signs reflect off of the wet windshield, and I see out of the corner of my eye a dim light from a cell phone coming from small, black sports car driving in the lane beside me. I felt like something bad was going to happen, so I kept my eye on the sports car as long as it was beside me. All of a sudden, the sports car started to merge into my lane while he was still directly next to me. Already prepared to react if something were to happen, I put on my breaks, blared my horn, and pulled onto the side of the road to make room for the sports car. This guy was a multi-tasker, and he almost got himself... and me... into trouble. There are three main types of bad drivers: the "speeder," the "grandma," and the "multi-tasker," like our sports car friend.

     The speeder is the most common type of bad driver. Whether it's someone in a hurry, someone who thinks that fast is cool, or someone who thinks they're straight out of "The Fast and the Furious," you always encounter someone trying to race by you. Let me ask, which would be worse: being 10 minutes late to work instead of 5 minutes late, or losing control and smashing into a tree, or another driver? When I lived in Waltham, every morning I would expect the same vehicle to come flying by me, no matter what the road conditions were. One morning during a snow storm, this same small, brown car passed me on a causeway without hesitation. The roads were a sheet of ice, and I couldn't go over 10 MPH without losing traction, but this driver thought they were invincible. When I see someone speeding by, I'm not thinking "Oh they look SO rad pushing 90 MPH in a 45 MPH zone!" No, I'm thinking, "I really hope a cop is sitting around the corner to bust their ass."

     Another common type of bad driver, the "grandma," brings out the impatience in even the most patient people, and can even be dangerous. When you're on a schedule, it's frustrating when you come up behind an elderly person doing 5 MPH in a 35 MPH zone. You drive patiently behind for a while, but when you've only gone 100 feet down the road in one minute, your patience tends to wear a little. I'm a believer in re-take driving tests when you hit between 70 and 80 years old. At the beginning of summer 2012, I was driving in the left lane of a two-lane, one-way road. All of a sudden, I see a gold Subaru pull out of a gas station to my right. The person in the right lane was lucky enough to see her in time and slam on their breaks, but the Subaru got to my side of the road and side-swiped my poor Malibu before I could react. I was devastated, and the worst part was: the woman in the Subaru was a 94 year old woman who said that she looked before pulling out, and didn't see anyone coming. My car was considered totaled, and I had to buy it back from the insurance company and use the money I got from the accident not being my fault to fix it. If this woman had re-taken her test, they probably would have figured out her sight was bad before she was able to total my car. The "grandma" driver may not be the most common, but it can be deadly!

     Last but not least, we come back to our sports car friend, the "multi-tasker." Out of all of the types of bad driver, this one is fast becoming the most common, almost beating out the "speeder." This decade has become all about cell phones, iPods, and other portable technology. It was a month or two after first getting my license when I was on my way back to work after taking a short dinner break. I stopped at a stop sign in a parking lot, and when I saw nobody coming, I began to cross to the other side of the lot, which cuts across five lanes; three going out to the main road, and two coming in from it. I was passing the last two lanes and was almost home-free, until a woman flew around the corner off of the main road and side-swiped me. She was speeding, and on her cell phone. This was not a nice woman. She freaked out, said it was my fault, and I ended up having to pay for her car because technically she had the right of way. Luckily in the situation nobody was hurt, but there are many accidents where people haven't been so lucky. In the time that you take to text and drive, you travel the distance of a whole football field... without looking. Whether it's someone trying to get a quick meal in, a soccer mom attempting to discipline her kids while she drives, somone putting on make up, or someone texting, the "multi-tasker" may be the most dangerous type of bad driver there is.

     So after multiple encounters with bad drivers, I wish I could say that there's a way to prevent letting these people on the road. But as soon as that small, rectangular piece of plastic is handed to them and their freedom and a steering wheel are put into their hands, you'll never know what type of driver they will decide to be. Bad drivers are being born every day, and somewhere, someone was just told "you've passed!" by an instructor who doesn't know they could be giving that potential bad driver the freedom to make the road a little more dangerous.