During the last eight years I have logged a lot of road miles. A little over 650,000 in fact, and that's being conservative. For ten hours a day, five days a week I drove a van for the company I worked for. I've seen a lot of bizarre things, and a lot of truly unnecessary accidents. There are three main problems with anyone who drives poorly. Poor decision making abilities, presence, and poor visibility.
Being able to make the right decision quickly is the most important aspect of driving. Every accident that occurs has at least one person who made the wrong decision at the wheel. Good decision making involves an active and rational (logical) mind, and the capacity to understand you must "telegraph" your actions to all the other drivers (which is part of presence below). Even if you make a wrong decision it is better to follow through then to second guess, because once the other drivers see what you're doing they can adapt to it. If you hesitate and second guess yourself then they are still left not knowing what you're doing. It denies them the capacity to make sound rational decisions of their own, as you're constantly changing the problem.
Presence is both awareness and the ability to let people know where you are, and what you're doing. In the few accidents I've been in I have always been told, "I didn't see you." It's obvious of course, because they didn't hit me on purpose, but what they're really saying is they were distracted by something else. I know tons of guys who as they
drive down the road are checking out all the girls they pass or see on the street. That distraction makes them not present, and puts them at risk when driving. Years of wanting to get home alive have trained me to not see what is in the cars, but the cars themselves. You drive 500+ miles a day for eight years and see how you feel. I still find driving relaxing though, because it puts me in a kind of Zen state where I feel and know what all the other drivers are doing. I rarely have "auto-pilot" experiences either, my route was constantly changing.
Visibility is pretty self-explanatory, but it's amazing how little it takes to make things tough. It only takes a split second of poor visibility at highway speeds to make things very bad, and just a light rain shower will throw off your depth perception which can be crucial. There are any number of products that make the water bead and roll easily off your windows ... use them they are amazing.
Hmmm ... there are probably a lot of metaphors to be drawn here, but I'll let someone else do that. I can't say if women drivers are any worse than men, but people who drive mini-vans generally suck.
