Karma

I just a Facebook post with a video of a driving incident.  Titled Karma, it was obviously taped by the driver of a car who was being harassed by the young man driving a pickup truck.  The pickup driver eventually made his way to the right side of the car, leaning out the window and flipping the bird to the person filming his actions.  He then speeds off, swerves, loses a hubcap, eventually losing control and spinning around in the grassy area to the left of oncoming traffic.  No one appeared to have been hurt.  The video ends abruptly, so it is hard to be sure, but it seems that oncoming traffic was not involved.  The truck ended up in a ditch, back bed-cover up, looking like there was considerable under-body damage.

The video was posted because it was supposed to be funny.

It made me nauseous.  It made me want to stay off the roads.  It made me sad to be a human.

Every day I make a 9-mile journey to work along a road where every driver thinks they are Mario Andretti.  Heaven forbid a driver drive at only the speed limit; they will be honked at and flipped off and given grief at every opportunity by the other drivers.

I try to remember if things were this pressured when I was younger.  Did older drivers really have no chance out on the larger roads?  Was it so common to treat other people like paper dolls?   Ok, nevermind "the good old days" - they weren't so good, or so another FB post tells us...  Why do we treat one another so badly?  And I'm not just upset by the pickup driver either.  Why was the car's driver filming this?  Was his/her driving so above reproach?  Why was he/she in the left lane if not passing another car?  Why is it funny to see someone act like a jerk and "get what's coming to him"?  We all pay for his mistake with higher insurance rates.  We all pay when accidents cause destruction.  Is the pickup driver's humiliation a lesson for anybody at all?  Do you think he really learned anything?  Or will he hit the road next time ever more angered by the video on his mind.  Will the car's driver be "on the lookout" for more aggressive drivers in order to get another "viral hit"?  Will other people try to encourage similar actions so that they can get their moments of fame as well?

We need to pull the internet out of the mire and quicksand of bad ideas, poor choices and mean-spirited commentary.  Everyone needs to drag social media towards the light, not further away.