Gun It!
It turns out that “Florida man” (and woman) is an aggressive driver who doesn’t understand the difference between the road to Daytona Beach and the racetrack at Daytona Beach.
A new study by GasBuddy shows three Florida metropolitan areas scoring in the top 20 U.S. cities with the most aggressive drivers.
Orlando is the only Florida city to crack the top 10, coming in at No. 7 on the list. The Miami-Fort Lauderdale area ranked as No. 17, while Tampa-St. Petersburg came in at No. 19.
And I live right between both of them. Oh goody.
On the one hand, I understand the desire to carry a “car gun,” especially for situations when aggressive driving turns into road rage, and harsh words become a potentially lethal encounter.
But.
It takes two drivers to turn aggressive driving into a road rage incident. Aggressive driving needs to be met with counter-aggression, and then things tend to get out of hand from there. Let it go. It’s not worth it. Yes, people act stupidly on the road, and yes, that stupid driver probably DID put you and your family’s lives in jeopardy in danger with that stupid maneuver, but you survived it, and you lived to tell about it. Move on.
Being able to de-escalate an encounter before it turns lethal obviates pretty much all the reasons why a “car gun” might be needed. Me? I carry a gun in my car, but it’s also the gun I carry on my hip. Either that gun (and me) are enough to deal with the situation I’m facing, or it’s not. Adding a car gun into the mix doesn’t keep me any safer having a gun on me, so why should I risk leaving it in my car overnight, making it a ripe target for thieves, or carry yet another gun back and forth to my home each night, in addition to the one on my hip?