I have a saying I like to use: “We are all “A$$holes”.
My theory goes as such: Many of us try to drive a car in a civilized, polite and heads-up manner. We largely succeed, but even the most astute and careful drivers amongst us eventually do SOMETHING that will piss off someone else. We drive appropriately 99% of the time, but...that one time you misjudge the speed of an oncoming car as you pull out, or begin to change lanes and don’t see that car in your blind spot. The person in the other car thinks you are a total jerk, even though you drive well 99% of the time. Then you multiply that by EVERYONE driving on the road who has that 1% lapse, and everyone ends up driving around thinking everyone else is an inconsiderate bastige!
But this is different, I suppose...I can screw up that one time, but I can drive well the rest of the time. Kind of like that old saw: “I will wake up sober tomorrow, but you will still be ugly and stupid...”
Stupid is forever!
I think about all the opportunities for collisions to occur during the rush hour.
Consider, say, fifty thousand vehicles trying to get to work in a given city, all at the same time, in stop and go traffic.
There are likely to be a dozen fenderbenders, and one or two worse collisions, during that rush hour.
Now consider all the opportunities for collisions that occurred among all motorists involved during that time. Any one driver must have had a hundred opportunities to cause a crash, and yet only a dozen or two, out of fifty thousand drivers, times at least a hundred opportunities per driver, actually caused a crash!
So, doing the math, that means a dozen collisions caused out of 50 000 * 100, or 12/5 000 000 opportunities, or 2.4 parts per million.
That's almost six sigma performance.
The wonder is not how many accidents happen, but how few.