I Can Deny It No More...Our "Little" Town Is No Longer Little

"I noticed when I came home that traffic was building up through town. There must be an accident on the interstate."

These were the words my wife told my daughter as we snarfed down our dinner. We had planned on leaving early for tonight's rehearsal.

Turns out we needed to leave a lot earlier.

Except for three years, I've lived all my fifty-three and a half years in Utah. I think the population of the planet, when I was born, was about half of what it is today. And I know the population of our state has more than quadrupled in that time. When my parents bought a beautiful plot of land on a mountain back in the late 1960s, our little town was just that...little. I think there were only a few thousand people who called Farmington home.

Funny thing--if you provide food, water, jobs to people, they end up marrying and producing kids, which, in turn, produce kids of their own. And those kids want to live where they grew up, many of them anyway. I know our town has been growing. Fields where we once wandered and played as kids are long gone, replaced by homes, schools, stores, and movie theaters Most of the time the growth hasn't affected us too much. I no longer commute and we don't travel very much as a general rule.

So, when times comes to hit the road during rush hour or if there's an accident on the main roads, I keep thinking to myself, "Where did all these people come from?" The truth is, Most have been here a long time and more are joining them every day.

We made to to our destination only a few minutes late, which, considering the circumstances, was amazing. And next time, as I'm sitting in my home, away from busy roads, I need to think--there's more people out there than I realize. Once I hit the road, I end up joining them. I wonder if anyone else asks themselves where I came from?

Not Where...But WHEN Has The Worst Drivers?

Every now and again a "news" item will show up with the newest survey proclaiming this group or that group as the best and/or worst drivers in the country. Personally, I think these surveys are a way to get people to click on their sites. I'm not a person who studies surveys or one who participates in them, so I cannot speak to the validity of their findings, but for a person on the outside looking in, here's how they go:

Survey headline: Utah drivers are the worst drivers in the nation!

People read that which generates the typical responses. Here's how they go:

Response: I agree! I'm from California and I now live in Utah and Utah drivers ARE the worst!

Or, you get: I disagree! I lived in California for 3 months and they are MUCH worse than Utah drivers.

Then people pile on with either AGREE nor DISAGREE takes. The real questions is, do these surveys and expected responses helpful at all? Or are they a way to get people to click on their site and get in arguments about what is right and what isn't?

I don't have any answers for those questions. I have opinions, of course, but no hard and fast answers. And one of my opinions on driving is this--it's not necessarily where people live that make them bad drivers (major blanket statement coming...), but it's when people drive makes a bigger difference in the driving habits.

I got my drivers license in 1982. Since then I've driven mostly in Utah, a little in Colorado and in Europe. I've shared the road with friendly drivers, jerk drivers, considerate drivers, clueless drivers. And, I must admit, I've been guilty of being every one of those drivers before, less you think I'm putting my driving skills above all others.

I've noticed that the least aware drivers are on the road during non-drive by times. Now, I know I'm being judgemental, but it just seems the drivers are not paying as much attention as others. I do have another theory--a sub-theory--that many of the drivers on the road between 9am and 3pm have a lot of time to get wherever they're going and I suspect many have really no where to go anyway. At least, that's how they seem to operate their cars.

These are my opinions. They're only backed by my observations. And I'm sure as I get older and have more time to drive during non-drive-time hours, I'll probably look at everybody else and ask, "What's the hurry? Sheesh!"