Have Patience While Driving Please

A car stops so that it can back-up and parallel park into a spot on the street; and the car behind honks.

A car is trying to make a legal three-point turn-around in a narrow street, and the car behind it honks.

And the classic example... a car waiting at a red light hesitates only slightly when light turned green, and the car behind him honks.

This driving impatience and excessive use of honking was beautifully captured in the funny parody song titled "Beep Beep Beep" played in the tune of "Moonlight Sonata".  You can hear the song on the site "Beethoven's Wig featuring Richard Perlmutter" or in the album Beethoven's Wig 4.

In the song, a car was stopped at the corner red light which will not turn green. One car started honking and then two. And as the lyrics go... "Those cars had to know that I couldn't go. ... Now my patience was wearing thin." And so he too join in on the honking. And the song ends with a trucker playing Beethoven on his horn.

Of course there are many reasons why a car will not go even when the light does turn green. The driver may not be paying attention. Or it may be a new driver trying to learn to go on a stick-shift car. Or the car could be stalled. Eventually, if you wait with patience, you will find that they will inevitably realize the light and will go. There usually is no need for the horn.

Do people not know that there is nothing that the stall car can do? The car will not go. Surely they must know.

Do people not understand that in order to parallel park in the middle of street, the car must stop and back up and delay those behind it? Surely, they can understand that.

Do people not know that when a person makes a legal three-point turn-around, he will have to stop twice and make three-movements before he can proceed normally? Surely, people can understand if the car in front decides to make a legal three-point turn, they would simply have to wait until the maneuver has completed.

Then why do they honk? Many honk simply out of impatience because their progress has been impeded. However, that is not what the car horn was designed for.

The car horn was not designed and put in place for drivers to express their frustration or impatience. It is a safety feature; that is why all car are required to have it by law.

It was designed to be used to alert drivers that you are here in the event they may not have seen you. It seems like most people are using the horn for the wrong purpose. If you ask people what the car horn is for, they will probably say it is to beep at the slow-poke in front. Most will have forgotten its original safety purpose.

Since most people do not seem to know how to use their car horn, let's get the instructions from the American Automobile Association. It says ...

"Use your horn sparingly. If you must get someone's attention in a non-emergency situation, tap your horn lightly. Think twice before using your horn to say "hello" to a passing pedestrian; the driver in front of you may think you are honking at him. Don't blow your horn at the driver in front of you the second the light turns green. If a stressed-out motorist is on edge, the noise may set him off. Scores of shootings began with a driver honking the horn."^[ref]

Why are people impatient when their vehicular progress has been impeded? No doubt, they are in a hurry. One of the problems of modern life is that everyone is in a hurry. We are all trying to do more and more in less and less time.

As Thoreau had said, "Life is too short to be in a hurry."

The book Happier says, "If we are always on the go, we are reacting to the exigencies of day-to-day life rather than allowing ourselves the space to create a happy life." [p45]

The author of that book, Tal Ben-Shahar advises us in his DVD Happiness 101 to try to take three deep breaths every time we reach a red light.

In the article Why Rush?, it says ...

"A big problem with habitual rushing in everyday situations is that it often plays into impatience and leads to conflict in one form or another. At best, it only creates an inner conflict."

and that ...

"rushing is mostly for nothing"

Rushing and driver impatience can also be contributing factors in road rages.

Impatience breeds not only excessive horn use, but also vehicular speeding. Of course there are emergencies in which one needs to speed. But no doubt, too many people do it far too often than they need to. Many times it is their self-imposed sense of urgency. They are creating their own stresses in thinking that they "have to" be somewhere at a certain time.

Of course, one should always try to be on time. The problem is that we do not start our journey early enough. Leave the house early enough to allow for extra buffer time in case of traffic, etc.

If you are inclined, try the following experiment. Next time, aim to arrive earlier than the appointment time. Change your perception to think that if you are always arriving just on time, you are actually leaving too late. Try to always arrive earlier than the appointed time and then wait in your car at your destination until the appointed time. You mean just sit and wait in the car? Yes. Doing nothing? You can. Or you can read, listen to the radio, and/or meditate.

Although not everyone will go along with this "crazy idea" because the modern world has habituated us to thinking that we must use up every possible minute and there should be zero minute to spare. But if you try the experiment, you might find that it reduces the number of instances when you have to speed. And best of all, it might reduce your stress as well.

With enough stresses, comes depression. And if you are living in the United States, then you are living in the country with the highest rate of depression according to Forbes 2007. The article says "The U.S. sees more violence, higher murder rates and more car accidents than in, say, Western Europe".

Many accidents are caused by speeding. In New South Wales in Australia, speeding is a contributing factor in 40% of road deaths.^[ref]

A study by the University of Adelaide shows says ...

"Excessive speed is reported to be an important contributory factor in many crashes. Analyses of a number of large data bases in the United States indicated that speeding or excessive speed contributed to around 12 per cent of all crashes reported to the police and to about one third of fatal crashes (Bowie and Walz, 1991). In Australia, excessive speed is an important factor in approximately 20 per cent of fatal crashes (Haworth and Rechnitzer, 1993) and speed is a probable or possible cause in 25 per cent of rural crashes (Armour and Cinquegrana, 1990)."^[ref]

When accidents do happen, the severity of the accident is greater when you are speeding. This should be no surprise. Article by US Federal Highway Administration puts it nicely by saying "The relationship between vehicle speed and crash severity is unequivocal and based on the laws of physics."