Considerate Recklessness or Rudely Considerate?

Writing about traffic, or driving stories is lame.

But I have to vent and rant.

I was driving down past Liberty Square Apartments with my friend Jessica the other day. We were following a black SUV and we were not following too closely. As we neared 500 North, the black SUV slammed on their brakes to a complete stop in the middle of the road. I am not the nicest driver, but sometimes, I wait and try to understand what's going on before I react. I did that in this case. I looked for a old lady with a cane walking across the street, or maybe a lost dog darting into the road or maybe someone was having a heart attack in the car; but there was no life-threatening or even important reason to brake unexpectedly. The driver of the black SUV stopped rapidly in the middle of the road to say hey to a couple friends unloading their car on the side of the road.

Once this came into realization, I reacted. I put my hands up in frustration and the friends of the black SUV started giving me scowling looks like I was the one who slammed on my brakes in the middle of the road. One of them then mimicked me and I began to lose my cool. I rolled the window down and we exchanged words. The guy was defending his friend for abruptly stopping in the middle of a busy road. Some people might call this "good friendship," but I call it pompous stupidity.

Another thing that happens to me constantly is what I call being "rudely considerate," or "considerate recklessness." In Provo, Utah, people have this weird obligation to stop their cars in the middle of the road for random jaywalking pedestrians. I don't know if these Provoans know that their cars are much faster than the jaywalkers, but someone should really teach them driving etiquette. I'll be standing on the side of the road nowhere near a cross walk, and the only car in sight will slam on their brakes in the middle of the road so that I can walk across the street. Where's the logic in that?

I understand if you're driving through a parking lot and people are walking all over the place. You should yield to the people because a parking lot is really just a big boardwalk to a store from your car. The walkers have the right-of-way. And yes, I know pedestrians always have the right-of-way, but why do people stop their cars from going 40 mph down a road to stop dangerously in traffic's way to "be considerate?"

That is not being considerate. It's dangerous and annoying. But the worst part about it is when I don't stop, I look like a jerk. How twisted is that? I refuse to being a sitting duck on a dangerous road, and I get glared at. It's not really fair.

But if you've been to Utah, you probably don't have sympathy for me. You could probably out-do any bad driving story I have here. This is the home of all the self-righteous, every-member-a-traffic-officer drivers. I have never seen people pull out in front of me to try and get me to obey the speed limit until I moved here. It's amazing, in a bad way.

So I am a pioneer in this pioneer-founded state. I will continue to not stop in the middle of the road for jaywalkers, I will continue flashing my brights at the slow drivers driving in the fast lane and I will continue to use my blinkers to let everyone around me know what I am doing with this Honda Civic going 40 mph. Logic is not overrated.