Revenge Often Only Hurts the Victim

For a while now I've caught myself letting other drivers off the hook instead of fuming at them. Plenty of situations on the road would have handed me a solid excuse to be furious, and I've been passing on them.

Take a recent afternoon. I turned left onto a busy street and ran straight into a box truck backing out into my lane. I had no clue what the driver intended, so I braked and sat there watching. He was trying to reverse into a service station on that side of the road. Sure, I could have pushed forward and forced the issue, and yes, the collision would have gone down as his fault since he was the one backing up. But what would I have actually won? A dented car and a point proven that nobody cares about.

The road has been throwing odd moments at me like this. Another day, a car sat at a stop sign on a side street while I rolled through with the right of way, no stop required on my end. He stopped, then pulled out directly in front of me anyway. I had every opportunity to clip him, and the fault would have been his on paper. Again: worth it? No.

Some people would call all of this driving defensively. I keep an eye out for whatever strange thing the next driver might pull. To me that's just driving safely. The real question is how hard I need to push to prove the other person is a lousy driver and then make them pay for it. Stopping is a hassle, true. It is not stupid, though, and insisting on being right usually is.

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