The Patriot Post® · In Brief: Why Does Everyone Drive Like Maniacs?

It wasn’t long ago that we posted a hilarious screed against people who back into parking spaces. Today brings us another one against other drivers far more generally. We all know that we’re not the problem. It’s that other guy. Teresa Mull begins with a story:

I’m cruising on an uncongested stretch of Interstate 80 when I see an eighteen-wheeler plodding up the hill ahead. I tap my turn signal, glance at my blind spot and coast smoothly into the passing lane. I’m gearing up my vocals for the “got runned over by a damned old trainnnn!” line of David Allan Coe’s song, playing on the radio, when I’m spooked out of my aria by a mid-size SUV barreling down on my bumper like a furious Pamplona bull.

“Cop!” is my first thought, as my pursuer appeared out of nowhere. I let off the gas and check my speed: seventy-nine in a seventy. Too late to tap my brakes. Besides, he’s likely to smash into me if I try that. I rush to merge back into the other lane and await the flashing blue lights.

Except the blue lights never come. The only thing that flashes is a Honda Pilot with standard-issue plates and a sticker denoting the driver once visited Dewey Beach. It blurs by me in the right lane, threading the narrow space separating me and the big rig.

Such incidents are becoming far more normal, and it’s unnerving, she says. But wait, there’s more:

There are also the pointless passers — those road warriors who see the slightest break in traffic as cause to put everyone’s life at risk by nipping around the vehicle they’re following. Never mind that there’s a hill ahead, it’s a double-yellow no-passing zone and there isn’t room ahead of the car they’re passing to pull back in again. Or that passing will shave off — five seconds, maybe? “My time’s more important than yours!” these drivers rave in their erratic maneuvers.

Ever have the nerve to look at the driver beside you? The ones driving tractor-trailers are my favorite. They’re able to command 80,000 pounds of goods and machinery while watching — or, better yet, posting — TikTok videos. Their brothers-in-arms (hands?) do their part by missing green lights and sitting for ten extra safe seconds at stop signs, warranting a wake-up honk.

It appears many drivers are auditioning for the next Fast & Furious film while simultaneously being less cognizant of their surroundings than Joe Biden. I’ve come to approach every intersection as a probable T-bone smash zone and, hugging the white line, to view every vehicle opposite me as a likely head-on collision.

I have no confidence fellow drivers will stop when they’re supposed to, turn where their signals indicate, or maintain their lanes. …

It’s not my imagination: a May 2022 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report said “traffic fatalities reached a sixteen-year high in 2021.” Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg called the trend a “crisis on America’s roadways.”

Forget infrastructure spending or those cute public service announcements. It’s going to take a cultural shift because, as Mull argues, “I reckon the real reason there are so many more roadway fatalities of late is because the number of aggressive, zoned-out and distracted drivers increased immensely since the outbreak of Covid.”

She says the pandemic did great damage to our individual and collective mental health. On top of that, our cars do more of the “thinking” for us than ever, which is yielding the opposite of the desired safety. Ultimately, she concludes:

It’s as if people believe they’re living in virtual reality and drive accordingly, in a super-hurry and indifferent to danger. And if you feel as if the driving public is increasingly unsafe, you’re not alone. I’m right there with you.

Spectator subscribers can read the whole thing here.