The overly cautious driver threatens lives in a way no cautious driver ever does. Cautious driving saves lives while the driving habits of the overly cautious driver can be deadly. Their driving is hesitant; they are afraid to merge. They inch their way in and out of easily-navigated parking spaces and always drive too slowly. Overly cautious drivers are dangerous and should be avoided.
The bad driving behaviors of the overly cautious driver come from fear. These too-cautious drivers drive slowly because they’re afraid to go over the speed limit. They’re hesitant because they’re always a little insecure about their own driving—and with good reason—their driving habits are horrendous. At all times the overly cautious driver believes that someone is going to crash into them, or that they are going to crash into someone else.
Perhaps that is why they go forward and back, forward and back as they park, holding up all the cars wishing to pass them, so that they too might park. And of course, it’s the same thing all over again when they vacate the spot. It’s hard not to get impatient, but honking—trust us on this—will just make things worse by increasing their anxiety.
The Overly Cautious Driver is Dangerous
In Overly cautious drivers are the most dangerous kind, fiction writer and humorist @Jeezzle writes of a personal experience with a too-cautious driver, :
I ran into one of these drivers just a little while ago.
They were cruising down the same street that I was cruising down. Suddenly right in front of them a person opened a car door and got into their car.
The car wasn’t even moving. Somebody was just getting inside it……..yet the overly cautious driver slammed on their brakes as if that person was about to crash into them somehow.
When they got to the intersection where you turn left they pulled out a little bit and then they pulled back. Then they pulled out….. then they pulled back.
They craned their neck left and right, and left and right, and left and right.
Instead of merging into the lane and joining the traffic…… they wanted to make sure that nobody was anywhere near them whatsoever.
First of all, they made everybody wait which caused everybody else to move a little bit faster and drive a little bit more aggressively.
Secondly, by not going ahead and merging but instead waiting and thinking that there was a perfect time to merge they were actually causing much more trouble.
There is no perfect time to merge. You have to have confidence that you can make it and you have to know how to drive.
Being overly cautious does not make up for driving confidence.
Self-Confident Driving
Is it bad to be a cautious driver? Nope. No one should be reckless from behind the wheel. But you have to have some level of self-confidence to stay safe and keep others safe on the road. If you think that everyone is going to crash into you, you’re going to make decisions out of fear rather than out of logic and common sense.
The driver who makes sudden quick stops because they think somebody might be going ahead of them is a danger. While they’re paying attention to something that may or may not be pulling in front of them, they aren’t paying to what is behind them. That makes it all too easy for a driver to crash into them from behind. Plus, as the overly cautious driver pulls back and then forward, lather, rinse, repeat, they are not really paying attention to the road, or anything else, for that matter, which makes it all to easy for them to crash into others, as they concern themselves with small stuff; the details that don’t really matter.
Fixated on Single Driving Decisions
Let us stipulate: it’s good to be a cautious driver. But the degree to which one is cautious, matters. When a person gets so nervous that they fixate on a single driving pickle, they lose their ability to pay attention to the others piling up on all sides of them. This how the overly cautious driver drives. And that is what makes them so dangerous.
The cautious driver, on the other hand, sees all, and sees everything all at once, without freaking out. They make smart snap decisions by reflex, and not by rote. They are steady and calm. These are qualities basic to driving, which is what makes the cautious driver a competent driver.
It is not a stretch then, to think of the overly driver as an incompetent driver. They make too many mistakes, because they cannot multi-focus. While they try to solve one problem, they don’t see that other problems are amassing behind and possibly all around them. They are paralyzed with fear and cannot make decisions, let alone snap decisions. Car accidents are often the direct result of just this type of incompetent, overly cautious driving.
In short, the overly cautious driver is a dangerous driver to be avoided. At the same time, all drivers should assess their own driving behavior and watch for overly cautious driving behavior. If it happens a lot, it’s a good idea to stop driving for a while, until greater confidence is built. The way to not be an overly cautious driver is to address driving anxiety and fear. It takes time, but that’s the way forward for the overly cautious driver who wants to become a cautious driver—one who is competent to get behind the wheel.
