I’m not a perfect driver. Simple fact. Luckily, I haven’t had any major accidents to date. I try really hard to drive safely. I drive 20km to work and 20km back five days a week. I drive for groceries and other things on the weekends. Sometimes I take a three hour drive to my wife’s parents’ cottage. It’s a lot of driving and sometimes I make mistakes. Plenty of people drive a great deal further than this. Is it fair to expect someone to drive for so much of their lives, without the slightest mistake ever? I think not.

I’m not encouraging careless driving and I’m not referring to accidents that ruin or take lives. I’m not talking about fender benders.  I am talking about completely honest mistakes. Mistakes that harm no one. Mistakes that although harming no one, somehow seem to result in unnecessary, disproportional anger in other drivers.  I’m talking about a time you were carefully watching a cyclist while sitting at a red light. You momentarily missed the light turn to green and received a prolonged and angry horn honk from a car somewhere behind you. Or, the time you took a few attempts to safely reverse park and held up a couple of other drivers in the process, only to have one of them angrily yell out of their window at you as they drove by. Have you honestly never once forgotten to check your blind spot? Driving requires a lot of skills. It requires a lot of our attention. We are all human. Mistakes will be made.

“We are all human. Mistakes will be made.”

Armed with this knowledge, let us all drive the roads expecting to see mistakes. Our logical brains know that they will happen. Let us drive as a team, not as one person against the rest of the world. We can look out for the imperfections in our own and other people’s driving. We can try our best to help them recover safely and with as little stress as possible.

“Unrealistic expectations are a recipe for stress, frustration, and unhappiness.”

I hypothesize that at least some amount of road rage comes from expecting everyone to drive perfectly and becoming enraged when this expectation is not met. Yet, the expectation is not realistic.  Unrealistic expectations are a recipe for stress, frustration, and unhappiness. Expect imperfections. Look out for them. Be the person who helps another driver during their mistake. Be the person who helps make our roads a friendlier place to drive on. Be the kindness in someone else’s day, from the comfort of your car.

By expecting to see mistakes on the road, we can adopt the attitude of looking out for each other. Be kind, not rude, to other drivers. Help make the roads a safer place by supporting the other drivers out there.

Kindness is the most precious commodity that we have in our possession. Use it freely, even from behind the steering wheel of your car.