Headlights

Saturday Tetsu and I were driving into the next city. "Pika-pika" An oncoming driver flashed his headlights at us. Tetsu quickly checked his headlights but no, ours weren't on. Ah... There's a policeman up ahead somewhere out to catch speeders.

Tetsu slowed down a bit (he's not much of a speeder anyway) but no policeman. Hmmm. What was that about? Another mile or so and ANOTHER driver flashed his headlights at us. Tetsu checked his headlights again. Nope. There IS a policeman somewhere rounding up speeders.

And finally, a THIRD driver flashed his headlights at us and sure enough, around the corner there was a speed check going on with a policeman sitting by his radar equipment in the bushes and another team of policemen a few yards further down directing cars to their van and the awaiting speeding tickets. Tetsu and I drove quietly past feeling sorry for the caught drivers, relieved that we weren't among them, grateful for the warnings, guilty for thinking of the police as the "bad guys out to catch us."

The police are only doing their job and their job is to reduce accidents. If requiring speeders to pay a stiff fine will make drivers think twice about speeding thus saving people's lives then the police are definitely the good guys! And that makes the nice drivers who warn others, and speeders who slow only because of the warnings, the bad guys.

Still, I was pleasantly amazed that three "nice" drivers would warn other strangers on the road. And though I was very relieved that we weren't caught speeding I don't think I'll be so nice about warning other drivers... What is nice and not nice, who are the good guys and who are the bad?