There are certain things we learn in driving school that we rarely question once we obtain our driving licences. One of them is the instruction to drive with the flow of traffic. We are taught that we should match the average speed and movement of the vehicles around us rather than behave like independent drivers on a mission of our own. The reasoning behind this instruction is understandable. Driving with the flow of traffic helps minimize sudden changes in speed, reduces the risk of rear-end collisions and prevents the formation of phantom traffic jams. When everyone moves at a reasonably consistent speed, traffic becomes more predictable, and the chances of unnecessary interruptions are reduced.
However, I recently witnessed something that made me reconsider this seemingly sensible driving principle. It made me wonder whether driving with the flow of traffic is always as safe as we are made to believe. What happens when the person setting the pace is not necessarily in a position to make sound driving decisions? What happens when the driver we are following is not fully aware of what is happening around them? Should we still follow their speed simply because they are part of the traffic?
There is a young man who lives in a mental health facility. Before his mental health challenges, he was an ordinary driver who owned a car and travelled on the roads like everyone else. Today, his driving licence is still active, and he still has the car he used to drive before his life took an unexpected turn. Occasionally, he gets behind the steering wheel and drives. Sometimes, however, his mind appears to wander away from the immediate demands of driving. He may be physically present behind the wheel, but his attention is not always where it should be.
Interestingly, he has not caused an accident so far. Perhaps he has been fortunate, or perhaps other road users have unknowingly helped him avoid situations that could have ended badly. What caught my attention was not just his driving but the behaviour of the traffic around him. Other motorists seemed to adjust their speed and movement to accommodate his driving. In a strange way, he became part of the flow of traffic, and the flow of traffic followed him. That experience left me with an uncomfortable question: What if the person we are following is the very person we should not be following?
Imagine driving on a highway where the majority of motorists are travelling at 75 miles per hour, yet the posted speed limit is 60 miles per hour. You may have entered the road intending to observe the speed limit, but after a few minutes, you begin feeling like an obstacle. Vehicles overtake you, some drivers follow too closely, and others appear impatient. Eventually, you start wondering whether you are the one doing something wrong. You look at the vehicles around you and conclude that perhaps 75 miles per hour is the acceptable speed after all. But who established that 75 miles per hour was safe? Was it the highway authority? Was it the driving instructor? Was it a road safety assessment? Or was it simply a group of motorists who decided, consciously or unconsciously, to disregard the prescribed limit?
This is where my concern begins. We sometimes surrender our judgement to the behaviour of the majority. We assume that because many people are doing something, it must be right. We become uncomfortable with being different, even when our difference is guided by an established standard. We would rather follow the crowd than risk appearing unreasonable.
Yet traffic is made up of individuals with different abilities, levels of concentration, experience, emotional conditions and intentions. Not everyone on the road is equally alert. Some drivers are distracted by their phones. Others are exhausted after working long hours. Some are impatient and aggressive, while others may be struggling with circumstances that affect their ability to concentrate. There are also motorists who simply have poor driving habits. When we follow traffic blindly, we have no guarantee that the person determining our pace is making sound decisions.
The young man I encountered brought this reality closer to home. His situation made me realize that the flow of traffic is not necessarily a collection of carefully calculated decisions. Sometimes, it is simply a collection of human behaviours influencing one another. A driver may slow down for no apparent reason, accelerate beyond a reasonable speed, change lanes unexpectedly or fail to respond appropriately to what is happening ahead. Other motorists may then adjust their own driving to accommodate that behaviour. In such circumstances, following the flow can become a dangerous exercise in collective uncertainty.
I am not suggesting that motorists should ignore the flow of traffic altogether. Neither am I suggesting that one should stubbornly maintain a particular speed regardless of the conditions around them. Driving requires awareness, flexibility and consideration for other road users. There are times when travelling below the speed limit is necessary because of weather, visibility, congestion, road conditions or the driver's own circumstances. Similarly, a posted speed limit is a maximum under suitable conditions, not an instruction to travel at that speed regardless of what is happening around us. What I am questioning is the wisdom of allowing the behaviour of other motorists to become our primary driving standard.
Perhaps we should pay more attention to road signs, prescribed speed limits and the actual conditions of the road than to the speed at which everyone else is travelling. We should learn to make independent decisions rather than assume that the majority has already made the correct decision on our behalf. If the road authority has prescribed a speed limit, there is a reason for that regulation. If the road conditions require us to travel even more slowly, we should have the wisdom to do so.
Of course, driving safely also means remaining aware of faster traffic behind us, keeping to the appropriate lane and avoiding sudden or unpredictable manoeuvres. Observing the speed limit does not give us permission to obstruct other motorists or disregard the need for defensive driving. We must remain considerate without becoming followers of unsafe behaviour. But there is a bigger lesson here that goes beyond driving. How many times in life do we follow people simply because they are moving in the same direction as everyone else?
We follow trends because everybody seems to be following them. We adopt lifestyles because they have become fashionable. We make financial decisions because our friends are making similar investments. We pursue careers because society has decided that certain professions are more prestigious than others. Sometimes, we even embrace questionable moral standards because those standards have become normal in our communities. We rarely stop to ask whether the people leading the movement know where they are going.
It is possible to be surrounded by people who are equally lost. It is possible to follow a majority that has abandoned reason. It is possible to move confidently in a particular direction simply because everyone else appears confident. Yet confidence is not always evidence of knowledge, and popularity is not proof of correctness. There is a danger in confusing movement with progress. Just because everybody is moving does not mean everybody is going somewhere worthwhile. Sometimes, the crowd is simply moving together towards a mistake.
This is why independent thinking matters. We need the courage to assess what is happening around us instead of surrendering our judgement to the people beside us. We must be willing to ask uncomfortable questions, even when doing so makes us appear different. There are moments when the wisest person in a moving crowd is the one who recognizes that the direction is wrong.
The young man in that car may never know how his driving made me rethink an instruction I had learned in driving school. His circumstances are not a subject for ridicule, and his mental health challenges should not be used to define his worth as a human being. Rather, his situation reminded me that we cannot always assume that everyone participating in a shared activity is equally capable of making sound decisions at that particular moment. A valid driving licence, for instance, is not a guarantee of present driving fitness. When someone's health affects their ability to drive safely, the appropriate professional assessment and licensing procedures matter.
Perhaps the greatest lesson I took from that experience is that we should not outsource our judgement to the people around us. We can be considerate without being careless, cooperative without being submissive, and part of a community without surrendering our responsibility to think.
The next time you find yourself driving with the flow of traffic, remember that the person ahead of you may not necessarily know what they are doing. They may be distracted, exhausted, impatient or simply mistaken. Their speed does not automatically become your standard, and their decisions do not relieve you of your responsibility.
Do not follow someone simply because they are ahead of you. First establish whether they know where they are going. After all, we might all be following someone whose mind is somewhere else. And that is a frightening thought, whether we are on the highway or navigating the roads of life.
However, I recently witnessed something that made me reconsider this seemingly sensible driving principle. It made me wonder whether driving with the flow of traffic is always as safe as we are made to believe. What happens when the person setting the pace is not necessarily in a position to make sound driving decisions? What happens when the driver we are following is not fully aware of what is happening around them? Should we still follow their speed simply because they are part of the traffic?
There is a young man who lives in a mental health facility. Before his mental health challenges, he was an ordinary driver who owned a car and travelled on the roads like everyone else. Today, his driving licence is still active, and he still has the car he used to drive before his life took an unexpected turn. Occasionally, he gets behind the steering wheel and drives. Sometimes, however, his mind appears to wander away from the immediate demands of driving. He may be physically present behind the wheel, but his attention is not always where it should be.
Interestingly, he has not caused an accident so far. Perhaps he has been fortunate, or perhaps other road users have unknowingly helped him avoid situations that could have ended badly. What caught my attention was not just his driving but the behaviour of the traffic around him. Other motorists seemed to adjust their speed and movement to accommodate his driving. In a strange way, he became part of the flow of traffic, and the flow of traffic followed him. That experience left me with an uncomfortable question: What if the person we are following is the very person we should not be following?
Imagine driving on a highway where the majority of motorists are travelling at 75 miles per hour, yet the posted speed limit is 60 miles per hour. You may have entered the road intending to observe the speed limit, but after a few minutes, you begin feeling like an obstacle. Vehicles overtake you, some drivers follow too closely, and others appear impatient. Eventually, you start wondering whether you are the one doing something wrong. You look at the vehicles around you and conclude that perhaps 75 miles per hour is the acceptable speed after all. But who established that 75 miles per hour was safe? Was it the highway authority? Was it the driving instructor? Was it a road safety assessment? Or was it simply a group of motorists who decided, consciously or unconsciously, to disregard the prescribed limit?
This is where my concern begins. We sometimes surrender our judgement to the behaviour of the majority. We assume that because many people are doing something, it must be right. We become uncomfortable with being different, even when our difference is guided by an established standard. We would rather follow the crowd than risk appearing unreasonable.
Yet traffic is made up of individuals with different abilities, levels of concentration, experience, emotional conditions and intentions. Not everyone on the road is equally alert. Some drivers are distracted by their phones. Others are exhausted after working long hours. Some are impatient and aggressive, while others may be struggling with circumstances that affect their ability to concentrate. There are also motorists who simply have poor driving habits. When we follow traffic blindly, we have no guarantee that the person determining our pace is making sound decisions.
The young man I encountered brought this reality closer to home. His situation made me realize that the flow of traffic is not necessarily a collection of carefully calculated decisions. Sometimes, it is simply a collection of human behaviours influencing one another. A driver may slow down for no apparent reason, accelerate beyond a reasonable speed, change lanes unexpectedly or fail to respond appropriately to what is happening ahead. Other motorists may then adjust their own driving to accommodate that behaviour. In such circumstances, following the flow can become a dangerous exercise in collective uncertainty.
I am not suggesting that motorists should ignore the flow of traffic altogether. Neither am I suggesting that one should stubbornly maintain a particular speed regardless of the conditions around them. Driving requires awareness, flexibility and consideration for other road users. There are times when travelling below the speed limit is necessary because of weather, visibility, congestion, road conditions or the driver's own circumstances. Similarly, a posted speed limit is a maximum under suitable conditions, not an instruction to travel at that speed regardless of what is happening around us. What I am questioning is the wisdom of allowing the behaviour of other motorists to become our primary driving standard.
Perhaps we should pay more attention to road signs, prescribed speed limits and the actual conditions of the road than to the speed at which everyone else is travelling. We should learn to make independent decisions rather than assume that the majority has already made the correct decision on our behalf. If the road authority has prescribed a speed limit, there is a reason for that regulation. If the road conditions require us to travel even more slowly, we should have the wisdom to do so.
Of course, driving safely also means remaining aware of faster traffic behind us, keeping to the appropriate lane and avoiding sudden or unpredictable manoeuvres. Observing the speed limit does not give us permission to obstruct other motorists or disregard the need for defensive driving. We must remain considerate without becoming followers of unsafe behaviour. But there is a bigger lesson here that goes beyond driving. How many times in life do we follow people simply because they are moving in the same direction as everyone else?
We follow trends because everybody seems to be following them. We adopt lifestyles because they have become fashionable. We make financial decisions because our friends are making similar investments. We pursue careers because society has decided that certain professions are more prestigious than others. Sometimes, we even embrace questionable moral standards because those standards have become normal in our communities. We rarely stop to ask whether the people leading the movement know where they are going.
It is possible to be surrounded by people who are equally lost. It is possible to follow a majority that has abandoned reason. It is possible to move confidently in a particular direction simply because everyone else appears confident. Yet confidence is not always evidence of knowledge, and popularity is not proof of correctness. There is a danger in confusing movement with progress. Just because everybody is moving does not mean everybody is going somewhere worthwhile. Sometimes, the crowd is simply moving together towards a mistake.
This is why independent thinking matters. We need the courage to assess what is happening around us instead of surrendering our judgement to the people beside us. We must be willing to ask uncomfortable questions, even when doing so makes us appear different. There are moments when the wisest person in a moving crowd is the one who recognizes that the direction is wrong.
The young man in that car may never know how his driving made me rethink an instruction I had learned in driving school. His circumstances are not a subject for ridicule, and his mental health challenges should not be used to define his worth as a human being. Rather, his situation reminded me that we cannot always assume that everyone participating in a shared activity is equally capable of making sound decisions at that particular moment. A valid driving licence, for instance, is not a guarantee of present driving fitness. When someone's health affects their ability to drive safely, the appropriate professional assessment and licensing procedures matter.
Perhaps the greatest lesson I took from that experience is that we should not outsource our judgement to the people around us. We can be considerate without being careless, cooperative without being submissive, and part of a community without surrendering our responsibility to think.
The next time you find yourself driving with the flow of traffic, remember that the person ahead of you may not necessarily know what they are doing. They may be distracted, exhausted, impatient or simply mistaken. Their speed does not automatically become your standard, and their decisions do not relieve you of your responsibility.
Do not follow someone simply because they are ahead of you. First establish whether they know where they are going. After all, we might all be following someone whose mind is somewhere else. And that is a frightening thought, whether we are on the highway or navigating the roads of life.
