u/HeyItsDina

Today I witnessed someone at a red light get out of his car to help someone struggling to get across a very busy El Camino intersection in their wheelchair. The person crossing was having a hard time hand-driving their wheelchair because the crosswalk is uphill.

This man got out of his car and after asking (I did see him say something to the person so I'm making this assumption), helped the person across the crosswalk to the point where they could continue on their own, got back in his car, and made it in time for the green light.

I would like to think that that act of kindness and humanity touched all of us behind him at that intersection today.

I hope that kind man will have the best year. I hope his water is always the right temperature. I hope he will always find all the little things easy in his day to day.

Hi fellow Bay Area peeps,

Today in the course of one hour I encountered:

1. A woman with a fussy dog on her lap driving into a parking garage, almost hitting a driver going the other way because she drove on both exit and entry lanes. The dog on her lap was very cute, sure, but it looked like she didn't even look up at where she was going because she was paying such close attention to the dog.

2. A car on 101 that had several hundred yards of empty space in front of it. Traffic was going at 50-60 mph and I estimate that car was going ~40 mph. I looked over as I passed by and the driver had both hands on his cell phone, not looking up at the highway at all.

3. Another car that was driving on a local road (speed limit 35 mph) but because the driver was on their phone, they were driving with the car straddling two lanes going in opposite directions.

Folks can we please just put down our phones and devices when we drive? Get ourselves to our destination safely, help keep others also safe on the road, and save a lot of time and money from not having to deal with broken cars and insurance claims from accidents that can be prevented?

I've lost people I love to reckless drivers (one was a drunk driver going more than 80 mph t-boning my friend's car at 11 AM). I don't know, it's just not worth it to, what, answer a text? Get back to your boss' email? Watch a TikTok video?

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1. "Posting on reddit isn't gonna make a difference" - maybe, maybe not. I know when I read Peng's posts on here I get energized about helping to remove trash in public when I see it, and generally just being more considerate at being a member of the Bay Area community.

2. "Lol stop complaining first world problems" - I don't know, man, I think traffic safety and just wanting everyone to make it to the end of the day alive and unharmed by preventable road accidents isn't really "first world problems," but even if it is...isn't it a good thing to want, for ourselves and for each other?

3. "People are gonna do what they want, just mind your own business on the road and stop telling people what to do" - as Chidi Anagonye said, "So why do it then? Why choose to be good every day if there is no guaranteed reward we can count on, now or in the afterlife? I argue that we choose to be good because of our bonds with other people and our innate desire to treat them with dignity. Simply put, we are not in this alone."

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Thanks for reading, to those of you who read through this post.