Monday 2 December 2013

On Driving

Driving is the greatest responsibility you will ever have (including raising children).
 
When you take on the responsibility of handling a 2,500kg lethal weapon, you take on the responsibility for your actions.
A driving license and the act of driving is a privilege, not a right.
 
We are responsible not just for our own health but for preserving the lives, limbs and ability to walk of everybody else on the road and pavement.
 
Perennially we hear
“I can react better than other people”
“My car is better than what those distance chevrons are based on”
“Speed limits are set only for the average driver”
 
Funny how so many saying this are in the highest risk 17-25 category.
Odd how so fewer than 50% say they are below average.
 
 
Power (in this case a car) is psychologically intoxicating; exaggerating existing dispositions of a person’s character.
Driving on the roads is no time to act like an insecure child on a power trip.
 
What are your attitudes towards driving and towards other drivers?
 
Good drivers are aware of their attitudes and make an effort to keep them from impacting their driving behaviours.
They recognize that driving is nothing more than the behaviour required to get from one place to another.
Driving is not a measure of self-worth, not a competitive sport and not a stress reliever.
 
Driving is a means of getting from one place to another that requires your effort and attention, literally as a matter of life and death – for you and for other people.
The situation on the road can change in an instant.
And no, the laws of physics will not suspend themselves just for you.
 
We do not learn to drive at 17.
We start to learn at something like age 6 from watching our parents or adults around us.
Conditioning ourselves with their faults reinforces a dreadful standard as the norm from a young, impressionable age.
We need to teach driving earlier – at school. We need to teach it at age 11 and 12 before hormones, power trips, conformity, image and showing off become even greater factors.
17 is completely the wrong time for children to learn to drive.
 
Crashes are commonly referred to as accidents, suggesting no-one is to blame. Nonsense.
Let’s destroy the acceptable use of this irresponsible word.
 
You take responsibility for yourself and others sharing the road when you drive.
Many people are hurt and disabled by driving - don’t do your part in really messing up innocent people’s lives.
 
Let’s make speeding socially unacceptable.
Let’s make any bad driving practices socially unacceptable.
It is a matter of life and death.

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