A Little Common Courtesy Goes A Long Way

By Douglas V. Gibbs

During the week, when I am not writing on Political Pistachio, teaching Constitution Classes, public speaking, or hosting radio programs, I drive a big rig.  The kind of truck I drive is called a "transfer."  The truck is designed for transporting sand, gravel, and base products.  The truck looks a lot like a dump truck, and my trailer is an over-sized wagon.  The box on the trailer can be transferred into the box on the truck, hence the name, "transfer."

While driving back from my first delivery a couple days ago, I saw a car approaching on the on-ramp to my right.  The lane was empty on my left, save for a car a dozen or so car-lengths back. I moved into that lane out of courtesy to the car getting on the freeway. She was able to get on the freeway without any obstacles.  The car behind me moved over one lane into the fast lane, and as I was moving back into the number three lane after the new car on the freeway went on her merry way, the car in the fast lane was passing me.

As the driver of the car to my left passed me he glared at me and threw his hands up as if angry at me that I had moved into his previous lane earlier.  I am figuring if I had the chance to explain to him why I had moved into his lane earlier, while he was a dozen or so car-lengths back, he would have argued it was the responsibility of the car merging into traffic to do so safely.  With such an argument, he would have been technically correct, but I was simply being courteous to the new car.  A little common courtesy goes a long way.

Our society, it seems, has lost a number of common things.  Common courtesy seems to be a rarety, anymore, and common sense is downright dead.  We used to refuse to demand the right of way, and middle fingers didn't fly so quickly as we navigated along the roadways.  We don't call each other Sir, or Ma'am, anymore, nor do we yield to others when it seems they are in a bigger hurry.  Children blurt out instead of waiting to be spoken to, and lying seems to be as normal as politicians calling each other names.  People want respect after being unwilling to give it.  Debate has become a war of who is loudest, rather than a battle of ideas.

I don't know.  Maybe I am just getting old, and I am longing for the way it used to be.  You know that era.  People greeted each other, men opened doors for women without being yelled at for it, and a man's sacred honor meant something.  Freedom was championed, and the free market thrived.  The sanctity of life was embraced, and consequences were paid for.

Perhaps that is old fashioned.  Maybe common courtesy has gone out of style.

I hope not.

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