True Driving Courtesy Requires Common Sense

I believe in sharing the road. When traffic permits, I move over a lane to allow people who need to merge onto the expressway to come in. I wait my turn at stop signs. I stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk. I try to give bicyclists and stranded motorists a safe clearance. I try to practice what I consider to be common sense good driver citizenship.

I like other drivers to be courteous drivers as well. But, I want them to use their heads! Some people seem to think it is being nice to yield the right of way when the laws of the road dictate that I need to be yielding to them and have already done so. That is absurd. In the time it takes for me to figure out what is going on with them, they could have already exercised their right of way and been out of my way. Instead of doing me a good turn, they just irritate me.

Some people like to do these driving "niceties" because it makes them feel good. They feel they are spreading good will in the world. That is often not the case. Consider the time I was stuck in traffic so dense that changing lanes was nearly impossible. The woman driving the car in front of me was on one of these "good will" missions. As we approached an intersection with a traffic light there were vehicles coming to a parking lot exit from a store parking lot to enter the roadway. This woman decided to let them on the road. Some others came up from the parking lot behind them, and the woman let them in as well. We actually missed that light because she let so many cars in from the store parking lot.

I would have liked to have gone around this driver, but that was not possible. I actually had to put up with this sort of behavior for several blocks before the opportunity to get around her finally appeared. All the while, she kept letting people onto the road regardless of whether they had been sitting there for a while or had only just driven up.

To be sure, the drivers who were on the receiving end of this "benevolence" were quite pleased. They smiled and waved and, I am sure, greatly added to the good feelings this woman in front of me was having about herself. She just loved spreading her good will. She was totally clueless to the ill will she was building up behind her. I was experiencing some rather nasty thoughts, and I know the people behind me were quite frustrated over our lane moving so much more slowly than all the others. They kept looking for opportunities to change lanes.

Obviously, unless we let people out of parking lots into traffic, they are stuck there. I know that. But driving courtesy needs to extend to people on all sides, including the rear.

This woman would have been fine if she had only used a simple common sense rule. If someone has been waiting to get out into the road longer than the person behind me has been waiting to get through this section, then, and only then, do I consider letting them in. If the person behind me has been waiting longer to get through this section longer than the other driver has been waiting to get out of the parking lot, then I consider myself to have no right to let the person sitting in the parking lot out. It is a matter of simple fairness.

That's Wade's two cents.

Wade Houston
October 24, 2007


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