Learn from mistakes on road to precision
While driving, driving errors occur. Please tolerate other’s mistakes, and don’t tolerate your own. If drivers are lucky enough to live through their mistakes, they should learn from them.
If another driver commits an infraction of driving’s official rules or informal etiquette, give them consideration, and try to decide why they would drive that way. Remember their example in order to avoid the same behavior yourself.
When you make a driving foul-up, get mad at yourself. Decide why you screwed up — whether it was inattention, distraction, inexperience, or lack of knowledge — and take the steps needed to improve. When you are on the receiving end of a horn-blow, consider that you may have made an error. That is, unless it’s coming from an illiterate operator like the one who honked at me the other day while I sat at a red light with my right signal blinking, staring at a “NO TURN ON RED” sign.
It’s encouraging that many drivers are learning and improving — some, even as a result of this column. This week, a young driver told me that she is now making her free left turn from a one-way to a two-way, and curbing unnecessary left-lane domination.
Congratulations! Those behaviors are improving the efficiency, safety, and predictability of your driving.
•For reader S.S., the learning curve is too slow for some drivers, so she wants to remind everyone who is driving a bit sloppily to remember the basics. She sent a couple of lessons, which she felt should be spread over two weeks for clarity and emphasis. But I’m going out on a limb, thinking our area drivers can absorb them both at once. Here’s what S.S. implores: “It’s me again, with another stab at using your column to try to educate the fools (choose your own euphemism!) who just sit there. Maybe it would help to take just one small bite each week, starting with the right on red, explaining that it is both legal and desirable that a driver turn right on red when traffic is clear, both onto a two-way and onto a one-way street. Then, the next week you could take up the slightly more complicated subject of left on red, explaining again that it is both legal and desirable to turn left on red from a one-way to a one-way AND from a two-way onto a one-way.”
Small things, like failing to make free turns, can easily be the impetus for escalation to big road rage incidents. That’s not a good thing, but it is true. A partial list of the things that annoy other drivers: tailgating, perpetual left-lane travel, fluctuating speed, no signal use, driving in a blind spot, speeding, going too slow, blocking intersections, and not taking free turns on red. Please try to avoid that stuff!
•Another thing making drivers angry around here is the preponderance of potholes. We should be used to them by now — they occur as a result of every year’s freeze and thaw. In a perfect world, they’d be filled the moment they opened up — but the world is not perfect. I believe that it is a driver’s task to avoid these ubiquitous chasms by straddling or steering around them. This maneuver doesn’t require the skills of a pro — if you watch the road surface, you can miss the holes. Oh sure, on a rainy night, or during a lax moment, I’ll crash through one of them. But to me, it’s a driving error on my part — one that I will learn from, and try not to repeat again soon.
We are a bit spoiled, and take good roads for granted. A 1924 road report from The Seattle Times simply describes the roads as dirt, gravel, or paved. For example, on Aug. 31, 1924, the conditions for the Sunset Highway were — “Fall City to Denny Creek: Good gravel; Denny Creek to Summit: Fair gravel.” Farther east, not reported.
•Speaking of that era, in 1918, a Lincoln County Judge, Ernest Sessions purchased an Apperson Jackrabbit 8 from a Tacoma, Wash. dealer. To me, the astounding thing is that he sent his sister across the state to drive the new car back to Spokane. Talk about pothole potential!
The good news is that you can see the Apperson, along with other vintage vehicles and clothing, in the new exhibit currently at Spokane’s Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture. The MAC’s exhibit, “Mutual Seduction: Cars & Costumes,” runs Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m., through Feb. 25, 2007, at 2316 W. First Ave.
There you will also see another dozen specially chosen vehicles with local history, such as Charlie Ryan’s Hot Rod Lincoln. Included are tributes to local racers Tom Sneva and Chad Little, plus a marvelous display of area clothing from the early era. The history really comes alive at this wonderful event — don’t miss it!