Creative Thinking: Idiots behind the wheel

A couple of days ago I read an article on “Arab News” that started with these words: “The Higher Committee for Traffic Safety is embarking on the first stage of its plan to tackle the trouble spot of the city where the accident rate is dangerously above average”. This encouraged me to write about a topic (causes for car accidents) that has been troubling me for a long time.
Therefore today … I am going to “rant”. Yes, I am. There is one kind of people, in fact, I just cannot be lenient with: reckless drivers. I cannot be lenient because they seems “willingly unaware” (a contradiction in terms, I know, but here it “is” the case) of the potential danger they are continuously exposing innocent individuals to (beside themselves, but this is “their” problem).
As I spend quite some time in the car every day, I have ample opportunity to first-handedly observe the behavior of those who deserve to be called “idiots behind the wheel”. The other day, while waiting at a traffic light, my driver drew my attention toward a young man who, to our right, was making his big vehicle literally climb over the traffic island, partition between the two lanes. I couldn’t help looking at him with wide open eyes and the “idiot”... smiled! He must have felt very proud of himself and was probably anticipating the joy of telling his peers about such prowess. He was on the service road and could not wait to reach the next opening to find his way into the main street. He was too smart for that. He had to go against all traffic rules and against all sensible reasoning and jump into the lane where he was not allowed to be. He was “super-driver”! I wondered if he expected an applause for his superior cleverness.
But the kind of individuals I am most biased toward are the smart guys who cut a red light. These are the epitome, or perfect example, of imbecility because they demonstrate how inferior their mind is compared to the normal, acceptable standard of any human brain. The red light tells you to stop because other cars have now the right to come forward from another direction. But the smart guy cannot wait. His business is so important that a few seconds are going to change his life! It may very well change it by precipitating him into a major accident that will possibly mean his own and other, innocent people’s death. But, no! This will never happen to “him”, because he is too smart, he can see what is going on from all sides, he “knows” how to drive a car. Therefore, when he reaches the crossroad and sees the yellow light, instead of slowing down he puts his foot on the accelerator and happily crosses away, while every other car is meekly stopping. But this is not the worst, even!. Many a times have I witness smart guys fly away, when the light has already been red for several seconds! Last night I counted up to four cars, one after the other, doing just that.
At this point, every single time, I wish we had a kind of “911” number that a concerned citizen could call and wait for a police car to materialize after just a few minutes. If such possibility “were” available, I would gladly assume the task of writing down as many plate numbers as I could. I would feel I was fulfilling my duty as a responsible and reliable citizen, which I believe I am.
All this said, is there a way to use Creative Positive Thinking to overcome the upset of having to bear such view more than once “every single day”? It is not an easy task even for a hard-core believer like me. What I try to do, after overcoming the first unstoppable upset, is to “pity” the idiot behind the wheel. No matter if he is young, old, intelligent, average, rich, poor....There is no excuse for his behavior. He can only be pitied because he is totally irresponsible and he doesn’t realize it. Nevertheless, he doesn’t deserve to be in a car in the driver’s seat. Rather, he should be put in a situation where he could physically and emotionally experience the result of someone else’s reckless driving. This might help. Who knows? But, anyway... who is going to do it?

P.S. I need to add that last night I saw a police officer single handedly driving a police car while speaking on his cell phone. I forgot to check if he had his seat-belt on, though!

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