Another Reason Why Driving Stresses Me Out

It's not a secret that driving is one of my least favorite things to do. I blame it on those two darn car accidents that happened the first six months of having my drivers license (yes, they were both my fault, and no, despite what some people apparently thought, I did not enjoy being called Crashin' Katie for the remainder of my high school career.) After those happened, I really didn't drive. I would drive to school, church, and work, and that's about it. My mom babied me and would drive me anywhere on the "scary" roads (roads that had more than 2 lanes). Whenever it snowed, she would drive me to school, because I was deathly afraid of spinning out (about a month about my first car accident, I was driving our family van, and I did a 360. It was terrible). The first time I drove on a highway was when I came out to school for freshman year and my dad made me drive for a few hours. You may remember the time last semester where my GPS unexpectedly took me on the highway, and I had to drive on it. Scary. At Thanksgiving, David made me drive home from Salt Lake, with my pregnant sister in the passenger seat. That was scary. But probably good for me to do. 


But. I just don't like it. It's one of the only things that really stresses me out. Especially in Utah, where there are pedestrians crossing the street at every end of the road, and people who turn in front of you, causing you to slam on your brakes. Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful to have a car. Otherwise, I'd be walking home at 10:00 at night from my job on cold, wintry nights. But that doesn't mean I don't hate driving. Typically, the stress from driving out turns to a little bit of anger. If you drive with me often, you'll hear me calling everyone else on the road who may be doing something slightly wrong, stupid, dumb, jerks, and other combinations of mean adjectives, usually starting with "freaking" (like, you stupid freaking loser...Sorry mom. This is why you should hire me a driver so I don't use words like freaking). I hate changing lanes, I hate driving when it's snowing, and pretty much I hate driving when there is more cars on the road than me. 


So, while there are many reasons why driving stresses me out, this is what has been the cause of all my woe over the past 12 hours. 


Blinking red lights. I hate them. They don't make sense. And they just stress me out.


Last night when I was coming home from work, a lot of the stop lights were out. It was dumb. Luckily, at most of them, I was the only car, so I didn't have to worry about it. But today, it was a different story.


I had to drive to work at about 7:45, which also happens to be the time that lots of people head to campus. So, there was quite a bit of traffic congestion. I was pleased to see that the traffic light by my apartment was still working, so I merrily drove on. Unfortunately, I soon saw that ahead, there was still one light that was out. That blinking red light seemed to be blinking right at me, mocking the fact that I was about to deal with it. The line at the light was fairly long, so I had to wait. While doing so, I tried to observe what all the cars were doing. My mom always told me that you treat the light as a four way stop. But that just didn't seem to be happening. I'll blame all the Utah drivers. After a few minutes, I was finally to the front of the line. And decided to just take the lead of the person next to me, and left when they did. This worked wonderfully, and I made it to work on time, but still. I was stressed out. And I wanted to curse the world afterwards (in a religiously edited way). But I didn't. 


Moral of the story. I hate driving. I only hope and pray that one day I will marry someone who will happily allow me to just sit in the passenger seat while they drive places. Or if I never get married, I'll be so incredibly rich that I can have a driver (because you know, print journalist are rollin' in the door).


Oh, and I hate roundabouts and Utah's obsession with them. But that's another story. 




(And really, I am a good, safe driver. Just in case you were wondering. So don't question yourself the next time you get into my car. I just don't like it.)