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Dangerous Thing Happened on My Way to Work Today

Written by , Mon, Feb 08 2010

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I drove my wife to the school where she teaches this morning. We’ve been doing this for the last couple of days while we were down to one car.

What was different about the trip this morning is that the driver of a minivan ran a stop sign just as I was approaching an intersection. She had no reaction and didn’t seem to realize there was another stream of traffic coming from the other direction.

Fortunately, we were headed in the same direction in two parallel lanes. I gave a gentle honk to get her attention and rolled my window down to let her know what happened. She did not roll her window down, so using a combination of inoffensive hand gestures and a loud voice, I let her know she ran a stop sign. Apparently, she didn’t even take notice of the stop sign.

I’m guessing by the unimpressed look on her face, she doesn’t really care. In fact, she might be wondering (ehem, you might be wondering) what this crazy guy was doing – chasing her down just to chastise her.

Traffic violations and life insurance

The thing is, I’m not trying to say she was wrong. Driving isn’t about right versus wrong. It’s about safe versus unsafe. She ran a stop sign into the stream of oncoming traffic. Some of my wife’s former students were killed in a similar situation two years ago.

While it seems more tragic somehow when children die, they don’t have any responsibilities or dependents. It’s a safe bet the lady in the minivan does. Imagine how life-changing it would be if she were killed. All of a sudden, her partner, children and the rest of her family are missing part of their life they depended on.

Carelessly running a stop sign may seem like an innocent thing to some, but it is unsafe. In a world where almost all cars on the road weigh over a ton, making thoughtless mistakes can cost lives. And they sometimes do.

Life insurance is for them

This isn’t a public service announcement about safe driving. Sure, it’s true you shouldn’t rely on the judgment of other drivers or passengers to tell you when it is safe; you need to make that judgment. And it’s also true, as my dad would say, “It’s not that you can’t see any cars coming. It’s that you can see no cars coming.”

I’m also not going to preach about how running looks bad on your driving record. And life insurance companies and underwriters look at this information to determine how risky you are. Sometimes, you just don’t get the best life insurance rates because of your driving record. In some cases, the life insurance company may turn you down altogether. That’s why it pays to get quotes from more than one agent.

This is a simple reminder that many of us make decisions and take actions everyday. Whether mindful or not, and whether we think they are significant or not, we put our own lives at risk everyday.

Prepare yourself for your family’s future. It may be one they have to live without you.

Start your custom, free life insurance quotes today. When real agents compete against each other, and you don’t have to worry about their phone calls and emails, you benefit from a unique, ultra-competitive but low-pressure environment. Try it today to see how easy and affordable preparing your family for the uncertain can be.