What the Hell Happened to Driving?

The last couple weeks I’ve been driving my pickup to work instead of riding. Because yeah, it’s fucking cold. And I’ve noticed something. Traffic heading up to Los Alamos has gotten bad. Not “there’s more people” bad. Not “growth over the last decade” bad. Slow bad.

At first I figured it was institutional growth. More hiring. More bodies on the road. Makes sense. But once I finally claw my way around the massive herd of vehicles creeping fifteen miles under the posted speed limit, what do I find?

Two. Maybe three. Slow polks. Holding every single other person hostage. That’s it. A rolling parade of hesitation at the front of the line.

I’m in a leadership class right now about developing an “outward mindset.” Empathy. Seeing others as people. Considering what they might be going through. And I get it. I actually do. In leadership, that shit matters. If you want people to follow you, you have to see them.

One of the instructors asked, “How many of you drove to work alone today?” Hands went up. Mine included. Then she said, “But did you really drive alone? Think about all the other commuters.”

Clever point. But here’s where I call bullshit.

Empathy does not mean surrendering reality. No amount of outward mindset is going to magically teach the front-of-the-pack clown how to drive the posted speed limit.

They’re not rare anymore. They’re the norm. And I genuinely don’t know what happened.

Are people high? Are they buried in their phones? Watching Netflix. Eating a breakfast burrito. Scrolling Instagram. Half-asleep. Fully medicated. Who knows.

Is it generational? Cultural? Technological?

Is it the same inattentiveness that makes drivers not see motorcycles? The same drift that sends cars across lane lines like physics is optional?

I still don’t fucking know. But I do know this: Driving used to mean something.

There was pride in it. There was awareness. There was energy. Horsepower and torque weren’t just specs, they were attitude. Freedom. Grit. Motion. You moved.

Now? We’ve got sensors, warnings, lane assist, and drivers still managing to operate a performance car like it’s pulling a fucking trailer full of regret.

Last night there was a kid in a sports car ahead of me. Revving his engine every few seconds. Cool sound. Zero urgency. Ten under the limit.

It wasn’t just annoying. It was anti-American.

And yeah, I said it.

So I’ll end with this: What the fuck happened? Because somewhere between grit and cruise control, we lost something. And I don’t think it was small.