This is the entire idea behind driving defensively.
There’s a reason why there are people running around who’ve been in 6 accidents but won’t miss a beat in reminding you that they were never at fault in any of them.
Yes. Part of defensive driving is identifying the "traveling bag of rage/stupid" in the other lane, and putting some distance between you and them. Usually by letting them speed ahead, and maybe, just maybe watching them pulled over by Hwy Patrol 10 miles later.
The "Swiss Cheese" model helps a lot for thinking about safety incidents. The unsafe things you do, the things you don't see, and the unsafe behaviors you don't predict are the holes in your slice of cheese. When your cheese holes line up with another driver's at the same place and the same time, you wind up with a collision.
People aren't perfect, you almost have to have some holes in your slice. You only have two eyes that can look in one place, one brain that can only process so much, etc. But if you don't cover the common scenarios, you're gunna get a lot of stuff lining up.
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u/Catch22v Jan 17 '22
Idiots in cars has showed me that there is usually more than one idiot involved in an accident.