I nearly hit a guy on a bicycle the other day with my car. I was indicating and taking the first exit left off a roundabout and this bicyclist shot past me on the inside lane attempting to go straight on and nearly ended up across my bonnet.
I braked hard, he braked hard, we glared at each other, exchanged a few choice words and went on our merry ways. I was still muttering darkly about it as I dropped my daughter off for school some 15 minutes later.
It was his fault. How dare he sneak up on the inside….and when I was signalling too! Bloody bicyclists!
Even as I write, I can still feel the mission creep of self-righteous indignation start to rise and my body tense correspondingly. The truth of the matter of course was that I was equally to blame. I do that school run every day: know it like the back of my hand so to speak. But just as I never pay attention to the back of my hand, I was not really paying attention to driving at that particular moment in time. My thoughts were elsewhere, on my to-do list, on planning for the rest of the day….on automatic pilot.
So be careful out there over the holidays; getting into a car is pretty much one of the most dangerous things we do….apart from getting on bicycles of course!
It behoves us therefore to pause before setting off, bringing our awareness and mental acuity to the task of controlling and navigating small or largish lumps of metal around the streets of this world and thus around, rather than into, other people attempting to do the same.
Image courtesy of hAdamsky