As you are driving to work one day, right there in front of you two cars collide. It all happened in a flash, but you saw it all. The Dodge pickup went straight through the intersection, without looking and plowed into the little Honda that was already there. Traffic comes to a stop, and you grit your teeth thinking about how late you are going to be. Then you hear the driver of the pickup yelling at the driver of the Honda about not giving him the right of way. The driver of the Honda says, “No, it was your fault.”
If you are a good person, you will delay that rush to work just a little longer, because without your statement to the officer who is on the way, the innocent party in this accident could very easily end up paying the price for this accident. People are doing their very best to get out of there, because no one really wants to get involved. Will you be that one person who will be there for that innocent driver today?
Every day innocent drivers in accidents get railroaded by the at fault driver who hit them, in part because the witnesses, if any, often don’t want to come forward, because it might inconvenience them, make them late for work, or make enemies for them. No, you are not required to come forward, but if you were that driver who needed a witness, you would want others to do that for you.
When you get behind the wheel of a car, you have many duties, but the biggest one is to be responsible and alert. There is so much activity on the road and around the road, and with so many people involved, if just one is not being responsible and alert, there is bound to be trouble. An agent I once worked with said, “It takes two people not paying attention, to make an accident.” And she was right, because if just one person was paying attention, the accident might have avoided. And when the accident does occur, another disaster can be avoided if the drivers around the accident are paying attention…the disaster that occurs when the wrong person ends up being faulted because no witness stepped up, or the witnesses weren’t paying close enough attention. When we get behind the wheel of a car we have the potential to change lives. Please…change them for the better, not the worse.
