Pay Attention Around You

I was driving home from work today. Traffic was very heavy and very slow. Several cycles of the lights would pass before you could get through. This happens from time to time. I realize it can be frustrating, but that's life in the big city.

As I was sitting in this mini-traffic jam a car moved into the curb lane, and zipped past a bunch of traffic. I needed to get into the right lane to make my turn, when there was a chance I also moved over and started to make really good time, until this car that had zipped past me was trying to get back into the second from the curb lane. That lane was not moving, even when the light was green, now the curb lane was not moving because there was no room for him. He was stuck between two lanes.

Now I'm not sure if he didn't realize he would not easily move back into the lane he previously was in or he was so rude he didn't care he was holding up traffic that was trying to get off that street, but in either case he sure wasn't paying attention to the world around himself.

The experts call this situational awareness. It's about knowing where you are how you are interacting in the world around you. This dude did not have it at all. It was rather obvious that if you have to get out of one lane of traffic to get anywhere, getting back into that lane quickly will be next to impossible.

However, he was using his turn signal.