Ethical Driving: You Don't Own the Road

Last weekend, I saw a mattress flip out of the open bed of a moving pick-up truck. During the past week, my husband watched a driver tie up two lanes of traffic because she decided to turn left from the right lane. Yesterday, a jeep nearly hit me head on coming around a blind curve on the wrong side of the road. It's clear to me that too many drivers have the same problem: they forget that they share the roadways with other people.

What is it about being in a car that make people feel like they are alone? They sing with abandon, eat fast food, curse at other drivers, pick their noses and make phone calls. Unfortunately, they often do these things while they're driving--instead of paying attention to the road. They assume the other cars will stay out of their way while they play around with the radio or text message a friend.

And even when some drivers have nothing to distract them, they still manage to drive as if the cars around them are on auto-pilot instead of being driven by other people who have an equal right to use the roadways. Yet they go home, complaining about every other driver, and never bother to consider that they may be part of the problem.

There's more to ethical driving than following the rules of the road. (Although, that is a good place to start.) What ethical driving really comes down to is remembering three things:

1. There are other people in each and every car around you.

2. Those other people care just as much about getting to their destinations as you care about reaching your own.

3. Other drivers cannot read your mind or magically anticipate your movements.

To be an ethical driver, you have to do the right thing, even when it slows you down or takes you out of your way. If you get in the right turning lane and then realize that you meant to turn left, don't hold up everyone behind you while you wait for a break to make the turn from the wrong lane. Just make the right turn and look for a place to legally turn around.

As with other ethical situations, the Golden Rule applies to driving habits. It's an easy moral code that fits everyone regardless of faith or non-belief. If everyone simply treated other drivers with the same courtesy they would like to be shown themselves, the roadways would be less stressful and a lot safer than they are today.