Gilda

Able to react quickly and decisively in an emergency. Her theory is that because she takes more risks, she'll be better prepared when an emergency occurs. My theory is that if you don't take the risks in the first place, you're less likely to need the emergency avoidance skills. And the fact that she's been in two accidents seems to support my view. She claims that because both were the other driver's fault, they shouldn't count but I still think it disproves her theory that she's better prepared in an emergency situation.

She also claims that my being timid on the road causes people behind me at left turns (this is our biggest point of conflict) to get upset, which could spark a road rage incident. My claim is that if someone else gets upset when I haven't broken the law, done something unsafe, or been discourteous, they are the cause of the problem, not me.

I once witnessed a road rage incident in front of the school where I teach. It was 2:15 in the afternoon which is bus loading time. The buses were in a loading zone off the road, the kids getting on. The law is quite clear; if the bus is not in a protected turnout (with a divider separating it from the road) or parking lot, even if it is pulled out of the flow of traffic, traffic going in both directions must stop while the children are loading with the red lights flashing and the stop sign out.

We used to have a huge problem with cars going in both directions ignoring the loading buses. There are signs all over the place approaching the school from two directions school zone, children crossing, special lower speed limits during morning and evening travel times, etc. There's no way any driver could get to the school without knowing that this was a loading/unloading zone.

On this particular day, a woman was stopped at the designated line while the buses loaded, a process that takes about 10 minutes. Traffic was backed up behind her, with several cars honking. Traffic in the other lane, going the same direction as the buses, was going right through the loading zone without stopping. A man from the line of cars backed up behind the woman who was doing exactly the right thing got out of his car, approached her and yelled at her to, "Get your fucking car off the fucking road if don't know how the fuck to drive!" One of the bus duty teachers had a cell phone with her, and called 911, which was fortunate, as the police had arrived by the time the guy had gone to his car and gotten a "tire thumper" (a lead-weighted wooden billy club) from his car and was aproaching the woman's car, enraged.

My point here is that if a man can get this pissed off because he got caught in school traffic while driving past a dozen signs to go past a school as school was getting out, if he can get this pissed off when he was clearly in the wrong and the woman was clearly in the right, then people are going to get pissed off no matter what you do. If I were more aggressive at making left turns, I might piss off the people I turn in front of. There's no way to tell one way or the other. Given that either way may cause road rage, I'll err on the side of safety.

That's what I thought; it's his problem if he thinks the gaps were large enough to get through safely. I didn't, so I didn't turn. And in the end, it meant waiting about a minute, which is at worst a minor inconvenience. Getting in an accident by being too aggressive is a major problem. I'll take a minor inconvenience over a major problem any time.

I very likely would have gotten through safely based on the criteria you list. My car, a Mini Cooper S, has plenty of get up and go, and maneuvers quite nimbly in parking lots and such. Grace was telling me she could have gotten her car, a 300c (a lot bigger and heavier than a Mini, but with a lot bigger engine, too) through those gaps, which were maybe three car lengths, with the cars going about 5mph. However, very likely isn't enough. I don't turn unless I'm absolutely sure I can do so safely. If it's a matter of waiting a minute for all the traffic to clear or taking a chance, I err on the side of caution. I'd rather wait a minute than get hit. An accident would have been a lot more of a problem than waiting a minute or a little more.

Exactly. I sometimes think I'm the only person who doesn't go through this particular left turn on yellow. Grace claims that the lights are green for such a short time and red all four ways for a second or two because the traffic engineers anticipate that people will be going through on yellow. I agree that it's foolish to have such a short green that only two, or maybe three cars can get through before it turns yellow, but I also obey the law. I know that it's a short green, so if there are three cars ahead of me, I don't even try to get up to cruising speed. I've never seen anyone but me stop at the yellow at that light, and I watch. But I think if the timing is faulty, the answer isn't to ignore the law.

What annoys me the most about how she drives is that if she loses her liscense, she loses her job. She's part of an ambulance crew, and one job requirement is holding a valid driver's license. Why take the risk to save inconsequential amounts of time?

This is what I was taught also. I leave an equivilent amount of space in front. Sometimes I'm unable to get right because there are gaps big enough to get my car into, maybe three or four car lengths, but not big enough for a save distance between my car and both the one in front and the one behind. And I'm not passing people; I invariabley will slow down to let traffic in the target lane go past in order to change lanes; slowing down gives me more opportunities and more time to change lanes.

The cases of missing the exit almost always occur on a highway I travel once or twice a week. The way it works is that there is a series of interchanges where I exit to a highway at the right, which later joins a second highway on the right, and so forth, resulting in my constantly having to change lanes to the right to stay on the highway I want to stay on. I know that if I miss my target exit, there's another one coming up that I can take and still get where I'm going, so I play it safe. Often my sister is with me, and it pisses her off to no end that I do this, because, she argues, it's heavy big city traffic; you have to take smaller gaps than you'd normally be comfortable with. I respond that I don't have to do any such thing, and what's more, I haven't had my liscence suspended (she has, which I think invalidates anything she has to say on the subject).

Two speeding tickets, one running a stop sign. Her contention is that if it's two in the morning on a rural road, slowing down to less than 5mph to check for traffic is more than safe enough. My response is that the law doesn't make exemptions for rural roads or early morning, and the cop who gave her the ticket agrees with me.

I speed on the highway on occasion, if it's necessary to stay with the flow of traffic, but never more than about 5mph over, and certainly never anything like 90 in a 65.

Both accidents were charged to the other driver. My point is that regardless of who was at fault, in both cases, she was unable to avoid the collision in an emergency situation, which invalidates her position that she's a better driver because she would be better in an emergency situation.

I don't beleive being very cautious is being inconsiderate. I'm harming nobody. She claims that I am by keeping people at lights or at intersections longer than they would otherwise be there if I were more aggressive (her word is assertive, but I see no difference here).

She wants me to just accept her judgement about when there's enough room at left turns, and after I've done a few based on her judgements, I'll see that there is plenty of time, be better able to time my turns, and I'll be a better an more courteous driver. But I refuse to take unnecessary risks just to learn how to save a few seconds when making a turn. She's the one bothered by waiting an extra 30 seconds or a minute, not me.

It's like with everything else in life. There are risks that you take because the potential benefits far outweigh the downside. But most of the time, if you can avoid a risk, it's the better course of action. Saving a minute of driving time is a tiny benefit compared to getting in a collision and losing a life, and not one I'm willing to take.

I left one out of my OP. The not being able to drive a stick thing bothers her also. It annoyed her royally that I wanted to get the Mini with the automatic transmission, even though it's a fantastic transmission. It's a CVT, an automatic without gears. She's actually said that your not really driving, you're just steering with an automatic, and that driving a stick is safer than an automatic because you have more control. This makes little sense to me. When driving a stick, you have two more things to do than when you're in an automatic, and you have to constantly be taking one hand off the steering wheel to shift, and looking at the tach so you'll know when to shift. With an automatic, all you have to do is steer, accelerate and brake; less to do, fewer distractions, more attention to focus on the road. I think she's just trying to justify that driving stick is more fun for her than an automatic, and she misses the way the engine whines and changes pitch as she goes up through the gears. She even drives her car in manual mode almost all the time (it has a transmission that operates in both modes). In any case, it's just another case of perhaps, doing things her way is better for her, but wouldn't be better for me.

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