Don't Drive Mad!

Just after the first of the year I had day where I snapped. If you have never snapped this is what it looks like:

1. Husband walks in the door. 
2. You snatch the keys out of his hand without saying hello. 
3. You slam the front door on your way out. 
4. You walk to the car without looking back at the children huddled around the window. 
5. You open the car door and throw your purse on the seat. 
6. Music gets turned on to drown out the screaming in your head.
7.  Ignition with a little extra gas because it sounds like a roar.
8. Tire squeals for effect so they know you are gone.
9. And because the first intersection is still too close to home and the anger hasn't had time to dissipate you step on the gas at the yellow light instead of slowing down and end up going through the intersection at a speed of 10-15 mph greater than the posted limit. 
10. "FLASH" photo radar at the intersection you thought was just monitoring red light running goes off.

Two months later you get to re-live the whole experience with a traffic ticket issued to your husband because it is his car, but has your picture with your ticked off face. I was really mad.

I considered letting him take the fall for the ticket. But it was mine. I was wrong. I never should have driven in a state such as I was in. I should have walked.

I confess that the ticket is mine and submit my information to the city court to correct the ticket and then get to spend 4.5 hours taking a defensive driving course. It has been over 10 years since I had a ticket and probably 15 since I attended a defensive driving course. It has changed... you can do it online now!

Now that it is over I should have chosen to take a physical course somewhere on the other side of town. I could have asked my husband to take the day off (because my anger was his fault) and spent the day out.

But I did make special note of these paragraphs:

How do Stress, Anger, Emotions, and Fatigue Affect Driving?

Emotions can have a powerful influence over the way you drive. Anger, anxiety, fatigue and stress can interfere with your ability to make safe driving decisions. When you are stressed, tired, angry, or upset, you are less apt to pay attention to your driving. You may not see hazards or react as quickly, and the chance of getting into a collision will increase. If you are angry or stressed, you may let your anger out by driving recklessly or becoming aggressive toward other drivers.

Emotions: if you are having an emotional problem, your mind is preoccupied. You may be worried about financial problems, family issues, someone who may be ill, etc. This is when you are most accident-prone. If you are in this condition, allow someone else to drive for you, or wait until the problem has been eliminated before you drive.


So online driving school is a joke. I thought it was going to be serious, so I paid attention between diaper changes, lunches, baths, with the sound track to Frozen in the background. At intervals they had a little animated cop with words in a red box that we were supposed to remember. Things like:

• George W. Bush is the 2nd president to follow in his father's footsteps.
• Dr. Suess' full name was Theodore Suess Geisel.
• Thomas Edison invented the light bulb
• Actor River Phoenix died on a Halloween night from a drug overdose.
• Katharine Hepburn hold the most "best actress" Academy Awards with 4.
• and about 2 dozen other facts just like this.

So I wrote all the nonsense down, and prepared for my test. I thought the test was going to be about driving and the things that I read pertaining to driving.

Instead all of the questions were about trivia! Not a single question on the test related to driving. So I paid $200 for a driving class to get rid of my ticket and was tested on trivia. What a glorious waste of time and money. However, I did save $20 by taking the course instead of paying the speeding ticket and now I know even more useless stuff than I did before.