Is it just me, or does it seem like people are driving “more crazy these days?” Every week I am hearing about severe and fatal car crashes and pedestrians/bikers getting hit and/or killed. I will admit, when I hit the road, particularly the freeway, another side of me emerges. And frankly, I don’t like it.

I get agitated by drivers who are rude, tail cars, cut in and out of lanes, drive slow, merge without considering traffic, etc. Then I remind myself of a time when I was leaving the hospital and had a passenger with me who had been in ICU for several days. I was driving more cautiously than usual, not wanting to create too much sudden movement, since the patient was recovering from major surgery. I remember thinking of how life was “as usual” for everyone else, as no one knew of my delicate passenger. Why would they change their driving habits to accommodate me?

I try to keep this in mind when I begin to feel tense because “some idiot doesn’t know how to drive.” Who knows what’s going on in lives of other drivers?  Is it really a big deal if I slow down my speed for a few minutes? Nope, not a big deal, and I should be driving slower anyway.

I share this with you in hopes that if you’re someone who gets agitated and impatient while driving, take a step back in your mind and frame up the situation to determine if it really is a “big deal?” Speeding seems to be the norm, which is probably why “speed is involved in about one out of three fatal crashes,” according to NHTSA. It’s easy to think “that will never happen to me,” and my guess is that most drivers who have been in accidents used to say that as well. Fuel up and drive safely.