I spend about an hour and a half a day sitting in the cab of my Ford Escape.  It has a 120,000 miles on it, but it’s been paid off for well over 3 years.  When it finally dies, I will consider paying cash for something and drive that till it dies.  Car payments are my least favorite payment. 

During this time on the road I get an opportunity to observe a lot about the human condition and have come to a conclusion about people.  The way you drive is often a direct correlation to the type of person you are.  It’s not necessarily what you drive, but how you drive, that is the most telling.  You cannot make assumptions about the vehicle, because they, like me, might have more than one vehicle that could possible define them. If you read in my bio, I also own a classic 1965 Chevy truck.  Quite different than my paid for Ford Escape.  Feel free to make your assumptions about the size of my ego or body parts. 

While I am behind the wheel, alone with my thoughts, I tend to witness random things. I see kindness in some drivers, as they let others into a lane and sometimes there is a casual wave of good gesture and then I see random acts of douch-baggery where people cut off 3 lanes of traffic just so others can suffer from the mistake that one person made.  You really can learn a lot about the human condition while you are rolling at the speed of 7mph on a 6 lane interstate.  

What should we assume about the person who darts in and out of each lane of traffic, cutting people off and making 5 lane changes per minute?  This person is most likely indecisive and loves the drama in life.  They create a crazy situation by constantly having to check all 3 mirrors and expelling a bunch of unnecessary energy.  Only to end up sitting right next to you in traffic, 3 miles down the road and getting to their destination at the same time each day wether they made the lane changes or not. This person loves the drama and most likely it’s not just the kind that occurs in their morning or evening commute.

There are also the “I am right, everyone else is wrong” drivers.  These people are the ones who drive the exact speed limit in the passing lane.  They don’t care that you have to pass them in the right hand lane because they are driving the proper speed and you are not.  Since you are so hell bent on driving over the posted speed limit, you will be forced to continue to break driving etiquette and pass them in the right lane.  They will show you!  You will be inconvenienced, but they will be right!   In society, these people are the rule followers.  Sadly, the laws of driving are very rarely applied in the real world.  They are just a set of rules you must learn in order to get the license at the DMV, but you can go ahead and forget them as you walk out the door right?  These people serve a purpose in life, but are not able to get passed their need to be right and therefore, nobody likes them.  They hold onto the guidelines of life and never understand that there is a world out there beyond black and white.  I often imagine them being 40+ and living alone, wondering why the world never conformed to them.  They do serve a great purpose though….these people make great designated drivers!  

Then there is the douch bag.  The person who would flip YOU off after THEY make a mistake in traffic.  As they are blowing though the stop sign and failing to yield, they are insulting your mother.  They are telling the person that the are talking to on the phone how much of an idiot YOU are as they completely miss seeing you when they pulled out in front of you.  In life, these are the people who are full of dumb arrogance.  The loudmouths, the guy who wears a blue tooth in his ear when he is not on the phone, the girl that blames the world because SHE left the house late and everyone on the road is making HER late.  These people cannot decide which lane to be in, so they will straddle two lanes till they decide. Nobody gets to move forward until they make a decision.  In traffic, they will drive as far as they can in the lane they are in, passing cars up for a quarter mile, only to expect you to let them in because they chose to ignore the “right lane merges” sign for the last 2 miles. You all want to punch these idiots, but sadly they are not the worst.  

It’s the people who have no purpose.  These people are worse than sheep. These people do not know their place in the interstate world. These individuals are the ones who drive the same way each day. Even when the traffic is lighter and they have an opportunity to go faster, they just don’t know how to accelerate.  They can’t pull the trigger and they don’t know any better.  They have no idea how fast their car goes, because they have never tried.  As you pass them, they have that blank, clueless look in their eyes.  Outside of the car, these are the people at theme parks who walk slower than the rush of the crowd.  As everyone is jockeying for position, so they can be at the the It’s A Small World ride at Disney 12 seconds faster, these people keep a steady pace and just exist as the world happens around them.  Not always looking up to take in sights, but more often their heads are looking down as they shuffle their feet to walk. They are the people who just stand there at the grocery store or mall with that “please just go around me, I don’t know what I am doing” look on their face. These are the people who never know what to do at work.  Somehow they had enough energy to apply and get the job, but spend their 8 hours a day just waiting to be told what to do.  They are not a cog in the clock, they are one of the extra parts that came with it.  Not functioning unless someone tells them to.  They are the unplugged computer and in this case, commuter.  They cautiously stay out of the current, in an effort to not get run over or commit to the commute.  They are just waiting for 5pm each day so they can do it all over again.  These people are not committing to life, they are just waiting for the end of the next thing.   

Sure, there are other types of drivers, but for the most part, they fall under these categories.  Few of you reading this will place yourself in any of these.  I know I won’t. Yet, you have witnessed each of these types of people, either on the road or in the workplace.  Sometimes some of these people just need an accident or something to scare them into a change or a moment of self reflection.  Yet, we are all creatures of habit and will eventually fall back into the same patterns.

Unless….we don’t.