I recently got this e-mail from a college student and it gave me great hope that todays students will really be tomorrow's leaders in driving safety.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Mr. Traffic

I am a college student at Lake Region State College in Devils
Lake, North Dakota. I recently stumbled on to your
mrtraffic.com website while searching the go.com search engine. I do
not mean to be rude when I say this, but yes, we have technology,
the Internet, and computers in this part of the country too. The
reason I write the the above sentence is because when I was in
Atlanta, Georgia in 1994, most of the residents I talked to about
North Dakota didn't even think we had cars or tv sets yet. Some even
told me that they thought we had more ice bergs here than people.
Yes, even though most people would not want to go through a North
Dakota winter, especially the winter of '96-97 when Grand Forks went
through the devastating flood, we say the weather "keeps the riff-raff
out".

I really can't figure out something -- whenever you hear
about major pileups on freeways, you very rarely hear over the news
that the cause was speed -- usually the cause is said to be "weather
conditions" or "slick roads", etc. I always say, the weather
cannot "think", the driver has to adjust to conditions at all
times while driving. When they say this in the media, (that poor
weather/visibility caused the accident), I say, "no, it didn't --
the cause of the accident was driver error". If people would
just slow down and allow themselves extra time, they wouldn't
have any accidents in bad weather. Then people say, if I do slow
down, I will be late for something. I say that I would rather
arrive 20 or 30 minutes late, than not slow down and end up in a car
accident or a quadrapralegic the rest of my life. Even in North
Dakota, there is road rage, although the biggest road rage event I
have been through is someone giving me the nice finger gesture on
Interstate 94, near Fargo (largest ND city), last fall when I wasn't
going fast enough for them. Thank god we don't have many, if any,
shootings resulting from road rage, unlike the big cities, like NYC,
etc. When someone does get mad at me while driving, I never make eye
contact with them, because that just makes the situation worse.

Since my speedometer on my vehicle is off, I usually drive
5 mph under the speed limit. Yes, you read right. I love to travel
whenever I get a chance and the time to, and whenever I have the
money, although the high gas prices have kept me stationary a
lot this summer. The one (and I intend it to be the only) driving
citation I have received is a speeding ticket about 2 years ago, for
going 68 in a 55 mph zone. The 2 lane highways in ND (one lane each
way) have speed limits of 65 during the day, and 55 at night. I got
picked up at night (had not had one drop of alcoholic beverages,
since I don't believe in drunk driving anyhow), had my seat belt on,
and was in a hurry, I guess. I got a $13 fine and 2 points knocked
off my license (later got them back, from taking a defensive driving
course). Right now, my driving record is clean, and spotless (I
intend to keep it that way). I know in some states, for driving 13
miles an hour over the limit, the fine would be a lot heftier than
the $13 I paid.

Getting back to the cause of most freeway accidents -- by no
means do I think I am an expert on reconstructing and/or an expert in
what causes car accidents -- but it is driver error -- with a
combination of speed (main factor) and road rage. I am by no means
saying I am a perfect driver either, but I think that at least 80-90%
of the drivers on the road today (no matter where they are) do not
deserve to have a driver's license, do not respect what a vehicle can
and/or cannot do (ie, pushing a vehicle to its limits when greatly
exceeding the speed limit, if it's an older car), etc. I also
believe that most driver's today at one time or another are absolute
impolite, egotistic, I-don't- care- what- I do- to-you while on the
road type of drivers, whether it means giving in to road rage,
showing someone else their finger, etc. By impolite I mean
tailgating -- just about every day, I see someone tailgating me so
bad that if I would not blink when I turned, (even when I was braking
a good half before before the turnoff, the guy behind me is riding
my bumper so bad that he would rear end me and smash my vehicle so
bad that both me and the steering wheel would end up pushed into
smitthereeens into the front bumper, and maybe even beyond that.
Besides my pet peeve of tailgating (while driving), another thing
that bugs the living daylights out of me (although I don't engage in
any act of road rage whatsoever when any of my "pet peeves of
driving" take place) is when the car that passes you slows down in
your lane to get on the off ramp, then you have to slow down for them
to avoid an accident. How can anybody be in that much of a hurry?!

Yet another one of my pet peeves is when people dart in and out
of traffic, and swerve from left lane, to middle lane, to 3 or 4
other lanes in a matter of seconds, and they are going 80 or 90
miles an hour (far above the speed limit, anyhow), thinking that
nobody else on the road counts but them. Another one of my pet
peeves is that the majority of people today either refuse to use a
turn signal when changing lanes or turning, don't know how to use
one, or don't want to use one, or just plain don't give a rip about
any of the other drivers they are sharing the road with. The one
way the state governments and federal governments (including all
foreign governments) could cut down much of the fatality rates from
speeding and drunk driving would be to enact 1 main new law -- give a
licensed driver, wherever they may live, 3 chances and their "out",
so to speak-- meaning if they have received a combination of 1
running a red light ticket, and 2 speeding tickets, in a period of
one year, or 3, or 6 months time, revoke their drivers license for
life and impound their car (and don't give car back to them at any
time), and give them an automatic 50 year prison sentence. Maybe
that would deter some of these people who get 10 or 20 speeding
tickets a year from endangering everybody's lives when they go 80 and
90 miles an hour on the interstate/freeway systems. (I heard over
the radio a few months ago that one legislator in Minnesota had
received his 12 (or so) speeding ticket). I mean come on, how many
speeding tickets does it take to convince someone to take it easy on
the road? The prison sentence and/or lifetime driver's license
suspension would probably greatly cut down on the amount of road rage
going on. Also, in my opinion, anyone who gets a DUI should
automatically have their driver's license suspended for life, have
their vehicle(s) impounded and never given back, and they should
get at least a 2 year prison sentence (very much more of a prison
sentence if they have received more than 1 DUI and/or been in an
accident do the drinking and driving). Driving is hard enough in
today's society, let alone having these people who have been
convicted of 5, 10, or even 20 DUI's, yet they are still driving,
even without a license, because their all of their vehicle(s) were
not impounded after their first DUI. Also, I feel that anyone who
knowingly and purposefully runs a red light, whether it causes
injuries or not, should have their driver's license and vehicle(s)
revoked/impounded for their lifetime.

One last thing -- Yes, I know I am getting drastic and
pretty tough when I refer to the above things, which I think
should be made into international law and would probably be very
hard to enforce, but as far as I am concerned, calling for it
would probably make the roads a lot safer, and get the people
who are repeat offenders of every traffic law, and don't deserve
to have a vehicle, off the road, and become as I call it "sensitized"
and caring for people again, instead of being "desensitized",
(referring to violence on tv and in society in general), since
today's society overall is becoming "desensitized", with tv and
movies, etc.

I better get going. You have a great site on driving.

Thanks.
D.O.