In an average week, where are you most
likely to get angry at other people? You may first think of the
workplace, or home. What about, where you are most likely to get
angry, and then convince yourself that it was another person's fault?
You might still think of the same place. But what about where you are
most likely to get angry, convince yourself it was the other person's
fault, and then get increasingly angry as you make more mistakes
yourself? Maybe your answer has changed now. For me, I think this is
a typcial routine for drivers.
In the sealed metal body which we use
to transport ourselves from A to B, no-one can hear you scream. Which
is a good thing when you are furiously insulting the idiot who just
swerved in front of you at that junction where they should have given
way and let you go first. Most people won't stop, get out of their
car and try to converse with someone who has done them wrong on a
journey, so we are forced to sit in our seats and simmer in our own
hatred.
I saw the results of a general survey
in my workplace some time ago that asked people how good they thought
they were at driving. I found it quite amusing to see that the
average (most) people thought that they were above-average at
driving!
I think that this ability to imagine
ourselves as being better than others on the road comes from what I
call 'a lack of practical forgiveness'. This means that we aren't
very good at recognising that other people can have bad days, and can
be expected to make mistakes. Unfortunately, at the same time we are
very good at applying these excuses to ourselves.
Cars are the ideal item for this,
because we should be competant at driving to even be on the road, but
at the same time they are still machines which we do not control as
directly as our own bodies. So, for example, if while driving another
man skids out of control on ice and collides with my car, then he is
a stupid man who should have been more careful, and could have
prevented the collision if he had been paying attention. But if,
while driving, my own car skids out of control on ice and collides
with another car, then it's not my fault because I tried to go
carefully, but how much control can one man have over a mechanical
machine that is so much larger and heavier than himself?
Stress against ourselves even seems to
rise out of our cars, since we have come to hold an expectation that
we really can control them perfectly. If you don't go down the path
of blaming the tool, then you can actually get very proud of how
skilled you are on the road. Referring to yourself as a less than
average driver doesn't seem to be an idea that most people ever
consider. Being accused of poor driving skills is usually taken as a
personal offence.
I think that it is purely a cultural
phenomenon that we feel the need to be so protective about our
driving skills. It may come from films, T.V. and celebrities, or it
may just be that we have grown up in a nation which associates good
driving with a competant adult.
If I said to your face that I was not a
very good driver, what would you think of me?
If I said to your face that I thought
you were not a very good driver, how would you feel? Would you
quickly try to justify that you were actually not that bad?
Image source: http://blog.self-improvement-saga.com/2009/09/blame-accountability/
