Driving: An Unofficial Guide

Driving is an ignored time-consumer to some and a stressor to others. There's too much time spent in the vehicle to think about what happened the night before, why you're commuting to a career that's gradually becoming a poor life decision, a growing dislike towards your fellow motorist for no valid reason at all, why music isn't as good as you remembered, a sandwich you had last week, a date you had a decade ago, and the overall feeling of where you went wrong in life (or where you went right if you're one of those happy people). However, most of us need to drive whether we like it or not.

The road can be a very frustrating and routine place. People face the same red lights, potholes, unattractive faces and bumper stickers, and general mental instability of everyone else behind the wheel of a vehicle. Daily and nightly commutes test the patience of drivers; through streets and highways, congestion and freedom, stoplights and rare synchronization, crosswalk timers and motorists approaching intersections that take too long, weak sensors, distractions and rubberneckers, multiple lane changers, and the inability to use a simple device such as a blinker.

The vehicle is the little area that the driver spends a portion of their day; it starts as a sanctuary where the motorist is free to do as they please: shave, text, sing, put makeup on, eat, drink (you be lawful now), and talk to a passenger face to face without any regard for what's in front of them. By the end, the tiny cell has become an asylum filled with curse words, screaming questions, steering wheel abuse, flailing arms, and an overuse of a certain finger. From your sanctuary to an asylum, we read to find a reassuring relation that we're not in this alone and everyone's just moving with the flow of traffic.