Of Frisbees and Freeways

World peace begins on the freeway.

At a young relative's fourth or fifth birthday, they got this flying thing... like a Frisbee, but not.

Both they and another kid really wanted to play with it.  Specifically, they started fighting over who got to throw it. 

To be clear, each was fighting to be the one to throw it, run to pick it up, and then throw it again. 

I started trying to explain that the point was to throw it to each other.  It's a two (or more) person game.  It doesn't work very well if one person just does whatever the hell they want.

But they were hopped up on sugar and couldn't process anything.  They just kept fighting over who got to throw it. 

One would throw it, both would run over to pick it up, they'd fight over who gets to throw it next, then both run over to pick it up again, rinse, repeat. 

I said, you both want the same thing.  You can both throw it.  With just the absolute bare minimum amount of cooperation, this could be fun for both of you. 

Finally my parents just took the thing away, and they moved on to other things. 

And all this has been a metaphor for why driving sucks. 

The speeding, tailgating, changing lanes eight times in a quarter mile span so you can maybe get two car lengths farther ahead, passing on the shoulder, and just not giving a fuck whether the people around you live or die... all of those were bad enough before the pandemic.  They're much worse now. 

It's like a bunch of four year olds with a Frisbee (that's not actually a Frisbee) wishing the game were more fun, but refusing to make even the slightest effort to accomplish that very easy and very attainable goal. 

Until we can narrow the bookends of acceptable road behavior, society will keep getting worse. 

As I've said a thousand times before, true peace begins with who you are behind the wheel. 

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