We're All Insane (re-post)

Why?  Cars.  That's why.

We drive cars around everywhere.  We take a class in high school and one test and then suddenly the entire world entrusts us with a hunk of metal and gears that travels at high speeds and runs on combustible fuel.

And we drive them around on roads with all the other people that took a class in high school and one test and just trust each other to check our blind spots and yield to on-coming traffic.

Seriously?  We don't trust each other with anything else, why this?  We set up alarm systems for our houses and carry rape whistles and teach our kids not to talk to strangers but we don't think twice about traveling 80 miles an hour down highways with total strangers who could kill us with one jerk of their arm?

It makes no sense at all.  Realistically, we shouldn't even trust ourselves behind the wheel. 

I mean, I accidentally run into door-jams far more frequently than I'd like and sometimes I forget what I'm saying halfway through the sentence.  Yet I still get behind the wheel and head to work every morning, confident that I won't do something retarded and kill myself.

It's a commonly held belief by most people that everyone else on the road is an idiot.  Other people are always driving like assholes.  Either they're going too fast or too slow.  They can't merge.  They don't use their signals.  They cut you off.  They run red lights and stop signs.  

But what else could we possibly expect when the entire traffic system basically runs on common sense, courtesy and the golden rule?

The entire modern world is hurtling around in giant, death-machines, pissing each other off and making stupid, oblivious mistakes and none of us even acknowledge how ridiculous it is most of the time.  It's amazing the entire species hasn't died off by now...

...then again... what's the alternative?  

A bike?

Pfft.