words on traffic

I have two thoughts on traffic today.  This morning while getting ready for work, I heard on the radio that there was a broken-down tractor-trailer on the side of the road right by my exit for work, causing delays on the beltway.  I could've taken back roads to get to work but thought, "What the heck, I'll just go the regular way.  It's only 3 exits down."  You might think I'm about to write about my 'big mistake'.  Not so!


The traffic wasn't all that bad.  There was some construction happening on my on-ramp, so all the cars had to wait in line to pull out directly into the right lane of traffic.  Don't we all agree that if vehicles just acquiesced and rotated every-other that all would move along smoothly?  This doesn't always happen, but there were a good chunk of conscientious people on the road this morning, and this was happening pretty regularly.  When it was my turn several cars went by before I could pull out.  What do you know?  It was another RAV4 who let me in!  


Does anybody else sense this unspoken bond between him/herself and other drivers who own the same vehicle as you?  Of course, this is ridiculous.  But I have always felt some type of unique connection to other drivers of my choice of make&model.  They have my back, and I have theirs...whether they know it or not!  But that's beside the point.  My mind is my world, right?  I'd like to believe that that RAV4 slowed to let me in because I was a RAV4.  And I thanked it because it was a RAV4.  And lo and behold!  There was a RAV4 in front of me, too!  I also chose to think that the RAV4 at my front and back were protecting me as I journeyed the distant 3rd exit to my destination.  Simple happinesses.  Lovely! :)


My other thought on driving actually occurred while listening to the radio about the broken-down tractor-trailer.  They said it was causing delays because, as always, everyone wants to stop to look.  We all know that not everyone wants to stop to look...because I don't!  "Go, people, driiiiive!  Everyone's seen a broken-down vehicle/accident/police car/[insert choice source of attention and delays] before!"  Some get more emotional about this than others.


Realistically, yes, 99.99999% of the drivers on the road in that backup have seen a [insert choice source of attention and delays] before.  But the .00001% of drivers who haven't seen it before aren't causing all this delay. So why do people slow to a virtual stop to look on?  Curiosity?  Perhaps.  Sounds like discourteous curiosity to all of us stuck behind you.  Couldn't it be more than curiosity?  Two innate reasons occur to me, both stemming from that fact that we are all human.


Being humans, we were created by Love and therefore are creatures who innately yearn to love and care.  Part of my heart surely wants the people involved in [insert choice source of attention and delays] to be well and okay.  Doesn't yours?  And I'm sure a large percentage of people on the road in that delay feel the same way, too.  Maybe they aren't consciously choosing to check on the well-being of persons involved as they drift by, but our hearts just draw our eyes to look over to hope and wonder if they are okay.  They people holding you up are just caring!  On another hand, sometimes we forget how human we are.  In today's world, it's easy to get sucked up into everything going on and forget to take a minute to breathe and remember that we're only human.  Maybe some of the people in these lines of gawkers need a little bit of humanity put back into their daily lives.  Take an accident, for example.  We get so caught up in our busyness that we forget we're not invincible.  Maybe seeing that accident will remind people that people do get hurt, things do happen outside of our control.  And maybe they won't consciously think about that now, but maybe it will change a little something in their hearts that will impact them down the road (no pun intended).


Often these two realizations/reminders won't fully satiate our annoyance for being delayed.  I also would rather whiz by at the speed limit and say a prayer for those involved, but it is what it is. Oh, life!  When I take the time to think about these things, it makes me feel human.  And thankful for being the one caught in traffic, alive and well.  Next time you're stuck in traffic, forgive all the gawkers.  We're all only human.