I drive a Toyota Corolla. It’s a good car. Everything I need, and not anything more. After driving it for about 6 months, I can say with certainty that more people pull out in front of a Toyota Corolla than pull out in front of a Subaru Outback. There’s no accounting for that. Something about the car makes people feel less threatened, even though the difference in a Toyota Corolla smashing into the rear quarter panel of your Taurus and a Subaru Outback doing the same thing is negligible. All of which has given me reason to consider being pulled out in front of and how it is not me personally but rather the car in front of which they are pulling out.
So, I should not take it personally, right? Well, if you listen to enough people, you’ll hear plenty of them say “Wrong! You don’t deserve to be treated like that!” Which makes me wonder what my next move should be. Chase the people down? Cut off someone else in traffic? Drive more aggressively? Buy an air horn?
None of these seem like the response onto which I want to grab. After all, we’ve already established that they are not pulling out in front of me, per se. It’s just the car. So do I just let it go? Do I just let them get away with that? I think maybe so. Does that make me a chump? Does it make me a fool? Probably. I’m trying to be ok with that.