After driving across town in dead-foggy conditions last night, I realized that I’m thankful for the inherent trust that we put in humanity every time we get behind the wheel of a car. As a general rule, I’m never concerned about my own driving causing a huge fuck-up on the road…it’s everyone else you gotta watch out for. I live at ~6,000 feet in elevation, which means we get some nasty weather and my single greatest fear during my commute on those days is that some overzealous sonofabitch is going to come tearing down the road like a bat out of hell thinking that they can handle the conditions (usually in a truck or SUV) and subsequently bashing into me and every other car on the road at that instant. It’s a legit fear, because it never fails I pass at least two accidents during those snowy commutes.
So last night, as I was cruising down the interstate at a balmy 45 mph through a thick and inconsistent blanket of fog with the dimmest of taillights in front of me and the most reflective and obnoxious of headlights riding my ass, it dawned on me that I probably was putting more trust in my fellow drivers at that moment than I put in my own friends on a regular basis. Quite frankly, if I didn’t have that lingering trust for them (it’s lingering because I still expect them to fuck it up eventually) I might just lose my shit with anxiety every time I get in the car.
[…] blow away any perception you thought you had of other people on the road and destroy what little trust you may have for your fellow […]