Length: 1666 words (6.1 pages)
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Everyone for Themselves


I lived in the village of Millington, MI most of my life, where most of the roads roll around open farmland. After moving down to Lapeer, MI and traveling daily to Rochester, MI on M-24, it seems as if people from different traffic areas drive in different ways. City drivers tend to go 5-20+ speed limit, tailgate more, and seem to run a lot of lights. I would say the majority of the city drivers do this. Some country drivers might also have some of the traits of city drivers, but normally they go 0-5+ speed limit, rarely tailgate, run lights, and do a lot less traffic violations overall.

The driving community of the U.S. consists of people of every ethnic background, race, color, and gender. Anyone can become part of the driving community as long as they have a vehicle to drive. To legally become a member of the community you must follow a few steps. First, have a license, which means you may have to take many tests in order to proclaim your worthiness, and pay fees to the secretary of state. The second step is to have your car insured through any broker. The last step is to purchase plates for your vehicle, again paying fees to the secretary of state. If you get pulled over by the police you may get into big trouble if you didn?t go through the ?initiation steps?. He or she may impound your vehicle and send you to jail.

Anything that has brake lights, headlights, turn signals, and bumpers (exc. motorcycles) can be considered a vehicle for driving on most roads. (Roads that move faster have requirements, for example, it should have at least a 400cc engine on certain expressways.) Also, expressways and fast moving roads frown on farm equipment or any slow moving vehicles. This is for the safety of the driver of the vehicle and the safety of everyone else on the road.

In my first few trips down to Rochester I was absolutely stunned how many people can rush a yellow, and run the red. For example I was about 30? from the light when it changed to yellow, obviously I couldn?t stop. I looked behind me, three other cars in my lane also made it! I try to assimilate so I won?t create an accident, but I don?t think I can ever go to the extent that they do. When people rush the yellow-red like this it creates a big problem if there isn?t a turning light for the left hand turning people, when this happens normally only one vehicle may make it through the intersection, sometimes nobody does. This happened to me many times so far, I would be sitting there for three to four revolutions of the light with only two other cars in front of me turning. On a rare occasion a police car will be in front of the cars who actually stopped for a yellow, which means two cars may be able to make it through.

Even when not at intersections left hand turns always seem to be a problem, especially if there isn?t a turning lane. Traffic will have to stop for the vehicle attempting to turn. Normally traffic is too congested to allow the vehicle to turn for a while. All of the traffic is all swerving into the other lane, or around onto the shoulder because they are too impatient to wait or slow down, which has a good chance to create an accident.

As I said earlier people from the city tend to speed anywhere from 5-20mph over the limit. There isn?t a rule of thumb for this, it always fluctuates with how much traffic, how many other people speeding, police coverage, and the time of day. Normally traffic goes the speed limit or a little above in the middle of the night or early morning. The speeds smoothly fluctuate throughout the day, normally during rush hour people are either going really slow, due to congestion or really fast because they can.

Normally driving down M-24, I?ve noticed that the two-lane portion would normally go 0-5mph over the speed limit. As soon as you enter the divided four-lane portion of M-24 traffic will normally divides itself and speeds up. The people going 5-10mph over in the right lane, and the people going 10-25mph over in the left lane. As traffic gets more congested, and more cops are around the vehicles in the left lane tend to slow to about 10-15mph over. The higher the level of congestion the more this happens, when you get into Auburn Hills the traffic will normally speed up again because it goes to 8 lanes. Sometimes you see speeding leagues which everyone goes nearly the same speed, with the theory of the police can?t pull us all over. Along with this excessive speeding comes passing of other vehicles. Some people just can?t stay behind one car, whichever lane goes farther (at lights), or faster these people switch into that lane. Many times these people weave in and out of lanes to pass slower cars, and to attempt to beat everyone else through that next light.

There are many things to blame for bad driving, mostly the lack of concentration. Say for instance music may make you feel different ways. If it is slow tempo type of music it may calm you down, or if it is very upbeat type of music it may cause you to speed and drive more recklessly. Cellular phones seem to be the biggest problem since the drivers are concentrating on their conversation, and not on what is happening in front of them. A couple of years ago a statistic stated that a person legally drunk drives better than someone talking on their cellular phone. Other aspects such as aggressiveness can affect your driving style. If you were in a station wagon you don?t feel very powerful, and don?t drive that way either. However, if you were in a sporty hatchback you feel the sporty-ness of the car and feel the need to drive it more vigorously and speed more.

One of the less welcome group to the driving community are the gravel train drivers. I?ve found in the last year that gravel trains are big problems for traffic. They are so heavy they can?t speed up, their weight tears up our already bad roads, and most drivers don?t obey the strict rules set for them. All drivers are expected to thoroughly clean all of the sand or gravel off the sides of their rigs before taking off. I could give a rough estimate that over the last year I have caught thousands of rocks from these ignorant drivers, the rocks may be just a pebble or more normally a big limestone rock. Along with the rocks comes the sand from their tires and from the sides of their rigs. Generally in any area that they have been working the pavement is extremely slippery since so much sand is on top of the gravel. Daily I go past a new construction site, Meijers in Oxford, MI, this site is incredibly bad. When dry vehicles make miniature dust storms, when wet vehicles make a muddy mist that your windshield wipers can?t clean off your windshield. Along with all of these problems the gravel trains drive the same busy roads that everyone else does. Most gravel train drivers will just simply pull out in front of traffic because they become too impatient to wait for an opening in traffic. Other gravel train drivers pull onto the shoulder really fast, and test the reaction that they get. If all of the traffic clears out of the lane, he?ll move in. This approach is definitely more correct than the ?I?m bigger than you are? approach, but either way this is something to always keep yours eyes open for.

Over the last few years with Michigan?s speed limits getting raised the older people of the driving community have been becoming more and more of a problem. Since they can?t see as well or think and move as fast as everyone else they tend to drive a lot slower than traffic. I heard on the radio that older people are currently at an all time high risk of dying in vehicular accidents. This might be from going so much slower than traffic, and they are at a higher risk of getting rear-ended. The only solution that I can think of for this problem is just simply for older people to try to take back roads more frequently.

I believe that everyone should assimilate at least most of the way to their surroundings, otherwise those drivers are an obstacle for people to pass, and are at a high risk of creating an accident. Now that I have been driving with all of the crazy city drivers you can say I?ve almost assimilated to the point of being one. I don?t think twice about pushing that yellow light just because I think if I stop the person behind me may not be expecting it, and may run into me. However, when I go back up by my old house I still drive mainly the same way I did before this experience.

One thing I found incredibly amusing is the fact that drives are so ?me-centric?, everything that person thinks revolves around that person. As Jerry Seinfield says, ?did you ever notice that people driving slower than you are idiots, or faster than you are crazy? Imagine driving down the road, a car passes you, ?that guy is crazy?, or if you are following someone slower, ?come-on you idiot hurry up?.? If you think about this it is really true. Everyone on the road is either an idiot, or they are crazy, since we all drive different ways Never-the-less we are all part of the driving community so we all must get along together because we all share the same roads.