Setting the scene:

Have you ever experienced a red-traffic-light situation where a vehicle drove straight through?

We sometimes see newscast stories where someone doing just that has caused a serious accident. The message is clear: “Don’t Do That!”.

If you are a regular driver, you’ve probably been in a line of traffic when a police car, ambulances, or fire truck has driven through a red-light.
Such red-light crossings are understandable and accepted as OK, but even then, the emergency vehicles always take great care when actually driving through a red-light traffic junction.

If, when approaching a red light in your car, you’ve ever looked into your rear-view mirror and seen a vehicle with its lights flashing coming up behind you, you’ll know the feeling.

If it’s an emergency vehicle, you sort-of-panic when trying to ‘get-out-of-the-way’, to allow a free-flow through the lights for that vehicle. I’m sure you know the feeling … not nice, but essential … and there’s a “Phew!” when it gets through the lights successfully.

True story:

One day, my wife and I were stopped at a red light behind an ambulance. The traffic light was on red, but the ambulance wasn’t flashing its lights or soundings it’s siren. Clearly there was no emergency, and the ambulance was waiting, along with the rest of us.

As we waited for the lights to turn green my wife said:

“I thought that ambulances could drive through red lights”.

My reply:

You could see it like this:
The ambulance is seen as having some sort of authority; some higher level of ‘permission’; some built-in advantage over ordinary motorists’ vehicles.

This underlying reality makes those unexpected red-light drive-throughs acceptable and understandable … everyone is compliant and submissive.

Then my wife said:

“Suppose the occupants of the ambulance are just on a lunch break and want to get to ‘The Pizza Place’ … quickly … if the driver and his mate really only wanted to get their lunch without delay!” … Mmmm!!

I suppose they could do it if they had a mind to.
No-one would be any-the-wiser … unless you spotted them nipping into the Pizza Place drive-through just after they had gone through the red-light!!

You’d then say: “Look at those people … using their power-position!”
I joke of course … surely our emergency vehicle drivers are far too responsible. They wouldn’t do that … would they?

Other types of Drive-through … №1:

Don’t Drive-through this one * Image by Erich Westendarp from Pixabay

Makes you think hey? You’d surely think more than twice before driving through this red-light junction.
You don’t want to end up like this motorist:

Yes … Safety does begin with YOU * author’s archive photo

Other types of Drive-through … №2:

I think that this drive-through wasn’t really meant-to-be:

Oops! … He wanted his medicines in a hurry * author’s archive photo

Other types of Drive-through … №3:

This one is even more potentially dangerous.
Its the ever-so-common drive-through that People in ‘power-positions’ perform with an underlying psychology that seems to say:
* * * * * “Look at me … I can do whatever I choose to do” * * * * *

From ‘The Light-hearted’ to the ‘More serious’:

Let’s think about people in power-positions … especially politicians, or your boss at work, or someone else that you see as being in a position of power.

People in power-positions can (and sometimes do) take advantage of their position. They often use their position to remove any obstacle that would otherwise be hindering them … at whatever the cost … in order to get something they want. And if it costs money, they usually have that too.

In a related story that I published recently: ‘Fred Has Fun with a Rich Man’, I said something that seems to apply equally to this, today’s story.
I said:

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This post was previously published on ILLUMINATION.

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