From outside the box

There are few things I take serious in life (actually this statement is not true but it's good drama for my lead in statement) and driving is definitely one of them. I am an excellent driver. And how do I know I am an excellent driver? A few things: I'm 58 and I'm still here, I rarely get flipped off, never get in a wreck, and the only tickets I get are speeding tickets. Good drivers get speeding tickets because we know when it is safe to drive fast, and we do it safely and confidently. I just wish the cops understood that.

I have always said that driving is the most important thing that we will ever do in our life. Why so? Because when we are driving it is the equivalent of aiming a loaded gun at every person we pass on the highway, and we are out there slinging this gun around everyday. A car is a deadly weapon. Cars kill more people every year than cancer, guns, and choking on tic tacs combined (I'm making this fact up, it's easier than doing a little research and getting the true facts).

Ok, so now that it sounds like I know what I'm talking about, and since we've established that I am an excellent driver, I would like to take this opportunity to share some of my knowledge of this subject. The number one factor in being a good driver is to always drive consciously. When you are talking on a cell phone and driving, you are only half conscious. You are also driving half conscious when you are too tired, high on drugs or alcohol, or slapping the kids in the back seat. Driving consciously means being aware of everything going on around you at all times. It means reading the cars ahead of you as well as behind you and to the side of you. When you drive consciously, you save the lives of stupid drivers as well as your own. In fact, you should do everything in full consciousness. Live your whole life consciously! But that is another subject for another day.

The second most important aspect of driving is to drive defensively. This means expecting that everybody else on the highway is going to try to kill you. Be ready for others mistakes. They don't mean to kill you, they just do. And getting killed is a bummer, I hate it!

The third most important aspect of driving is to not tail gate. It is illogical and dangerous. You don't get there any faster. In martial arts there is a defensive posture known as the "critical zone". This means that you always stay at least arms and leg distance away from a possible opponent so that you have time to react to whatever that opponent may try to do. When you are face to face doing that testosterone macho thing, either person can knee to the groin or head butt without the other person having enough time to react, no matter how fast or skilled the other person is. This is the same situation when you are tail gating. No matter how fast your reflexes are, you can not react to a sudden stop when you are 10 feet behind another car doing 60 miles an hour. I am a believer in the 1 foot for every mile per hour rule, or a car length for every 10 miles per hour. You get there just as fast and much safer.

Fourth rule: be very carefull passing on a two lane road. I remember traveling south on highway 70 somewhere between Oroville and Marysville doing about 65 and have some idiot pass me when it wasn't safe, almost causing a head on collision, only to watch them do it again with the next car a few yards down the highway, and then 20 miles later I pull up right behind this idiot at the first stop light I come to in Marysville! How smart was all that?

Fifth rule: when traveling on a two lane highway, hug the right side of the road when cars are passing by. This puts a little more distance between you and the cars flying by you going in the opposite direction. If somebody starts to drift over to your lane, you have more time to react. Note to self....Shouldn't this have been mentioned under defensive driving?

I would like to share a thought about highway rudeness. When you get that urge to lift your right hand in the air and flip off another driver, please stop and think about this before you do it. Isn't it really more effective to roll down your window and extend your left hand out and flip with that one? You can wave it around more and they see it better.

Well that's it, that's everything you need to know about driving....except for a lot of other stuff. If sharing my expertise on driving can save just one life, it will be worth the 30 minutes it took me to write this. If it had taken me an hour to write this, it would not be worth it, my times too valuable.

One last note, to any police officers that may be reading this. If you see a guy doing 75 in a 55 mile zone and he's not tail gating, he's got good tires, he's had a good nights sleep, and he 100% conscious, I mean totally in the now (and especially if he's got gray hair driving a white 2005 4 door dodge ram....gotta exercise that hemi), leave him alone, go after the idiot who's driving 55 miles an hour right up on somebodies ass, because he's the dangerous driver, not me....I mean if I ever drove that fast and I don't.... mostly.