Okay, rhetorical question; of course, everyone makes mistakes occasionally (perhaps more than just occasionally). It is simple human nature to be fallible... and to make at least a half-hearted attempt at making the unintentional mistake look like an intentional non-mistake.
This aspect of human nature extends to driving. Who among us hasn't, at least once, reassured a passenger that we're actually taking a shortcut... or that we jerked the wheel that way because of a squirrel running in front of the car... or any number of other similar "I meant to do that!" statements.
Unfortunately, some "whoops" actions seem to invariably lead not to a statement, but an action that serves to magnify the mistake. These are (all together now) annoying.
And, frankly, dangerous. Dangerous (and annoying) enough for me to present them here as an example to my fellow drivers of what NOT to do, no matter how embarrassing the lead-in mistake might be.
I actually had a different post in mind for tonight, but I had to dodge so many vehicles whose drivers were engaged in "I meant to do that!" actions that by the time I reached my neighborhood I had forgotten all about it. The worst part was that the driver of each and every vehicle I (and others) had to dodge did exactly the same thing... but before getting to that particular detail, let me describe the "Whoops!" part of what each driver did. (To help create a frame of reference, I add here the fact that all this occurred on a two-mile stretch of a single road at 1:30 in the morning.)
- The person in a large, dark SUV who forgot to turn on the headlights and then suddenly decided to cut across two lanes in front of other drivers who could only see the SUV as a shadow;
- The person in a dark compact who neglected to stop at a stop sign;
- The person in a large, dark pickup who first thought he was passing his turn, then realized it was a block farther down the road;
- The person in a silver compact who assumed the six-lane road I was driving on had the same flashing red traffic light as his two-lane side road;
- The person in a minivan who neglected to look both ways before pulling out of a side street;
- The young dude in a hot-rodded compact who thought he could blast out of a parking lot before oncoming traffic reached the entrance; and
- The person in a dark midsize sedan who simply could not decide which was the right intersection at which to turn left, then suddenly decided it was this one.
What (aside from a lack of driving skill) did each of these people have in common? They all did exactly the same thing when they realized they had made a mistake:
They hit the brakes.
They hit the brakes and slowed to an almost complete stop.
They hit the brakes and slowed to an almost complete stop directly in front of the oncoming drivers (including yours truly) who were desperately trying to avoid slamming into the idiot who had just put themselves directly in our path without warning and with only inches to spare.
Amazingly, there was no vehicle-to-vehicle contact -- there were plenty of squealing tires, and a couple of shaking fists, but no actual accidents.
Just a lot of really, really annoyed drivers who barely managed to avoid running into a series of idiots who decided the best way to make a moving mistake look like a carefully thought-out action by stopping their motion.
So, dear reader, please remember: if you screwed up while driving, you screwed up while driving; anyone who knows you are a member of good ol' H. sapiens will understand and forgive you even if you fail to add a dangerous, badly-thought-out, and annoying cessation of motion to the mistake.
And you don't want to be that annoying, do you...?
