Last night, while driving home, we saw it happening right before our eyes, almost in slow motion.  The Subaru to the left of us suddenly realized he was passing his exit.

He accelerated and flew across three lanes of traffic, inches from our front bumper, and started careening towards the guard rail.  Luckily, and by the grace of some higher power (and certainly not his own good sense), he pulled back and righted his car a split second before becoming a pinball and endangering all of our lives.

After that, he calmly drove a reasonable speed to the next exit (1/2 mile farther) and took that one, which is what he should have done in the first place.

I get how frustrating it is to miss a turn, or speed past your exit, or have someone following too closely to be able to brake in time for the driveway you want, but if your time is so precious that you can’t lose the extra three minutes that missing the turn will cost you, think about how many minutes an accident will take up.  Or a ticket.  And please don’t sacrifice all the rest of the minutes in your life just to try and make it.

Missing an exit is not the end of the world.
Trying to make it might be.

Hope the Subaru driver sees this and thinks twice next time.  It might save his life.
And someone else’s.