I like to think of myself as the world’s greatest driver, mainly because my wife often says I am.
“That guy just cut me off,” I said one day last week.
“Yes he did. Not everyone can be the world’s best driver, like you,” she replied, repeating something she often tells me in the car together.
So when I got pulled over in Plover last week, I was flabbergasted when I learned it wasn’t for some type of mechanical error on my vehicle, such as a burned out headlight.
“Do you know why I pulled you over?” the officer asked me.
“Not really,” I said.
“You failed to fully stop for the stop sign back there.”
“Really? I thought I did stop.”
“Nope.”
Thinking about it, though, I knew my stop was too quick to be an actual stop, so the officer was correct in pulling me over. So much for being the world’s greatest driver.
Stopping quickly and then resuming your drive just as quickly at an intersection is a difficult habit to break, as I noticed after the officer let me go with just a written warning. It’s especially difficult at intersections in which you can easily see the other traffic and know when it’s safe to go.
Watching others since then, I’ve noticed many other people have the same potentially fatal habit. We live in a fast-paced society after all, and fully stopping takes too much of our precious time. God forbid we don’t get to work or school on time, even though many of us complain we don’t even really want to be there.
Because I am now fully stopping at all stop-sign controlled intersections, I’m irritating many others following me on the road. One morning this week, a guy behind me literally rode my bumper through the intersection to make up for the seconds he lost as I made my full stop.
He wasn’t pleased then when I kept my car at the 25 mile per hour speed limit on the road, and I could see him cursing when I turned a direction he also needed to go. When we got on a four-lane road, he quickly passed me, probably much to his relief. He gained a lot of time then, without me blocking his path, but I caught up when a traffic light stopped him. I shouldn’t take pleasure in his frustration, but it did make me laugh.
I’ll probably irritate quite a few more drivers because of my commitment to making sure I follow all traffic laws to a tee, as I’m sure many of those drivers will irritate me by not being the world’s greatest driver.
But I earned this title, as I’m sure many other commentating drivers with spouses have also earned. Hopefully, they are not as surprised as I was when an officer revealed I wasn’t perfect.
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Orginally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, April 22, 2011.
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