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The Risks of Moving Too Fast

It was to be the first time I would be making the 130km journey from Lagos to Ibadan alone. I had always gone by bus and considering the history of the road, I was a little nervous driving alone.

I never planned to go alone originally but due to some last minute cancellations, I had to muster all the courage I could get. When the day came, I got into the car and began my journey.

Even though I assumed I had overcome the nervousness, I still felt the need to say some prayers as I began the journey.

As a music freak, there had to be music playing. It was supposed to keep me company and help me not to fall asleep (although I had never fallen asleep but I couldn't afford to risk anything).

The journey was smooth, the music was playing, I was feeling on top of the world. I had just successfully gone from 80kmph to 0kmph in a matter of seconds to avoid colliding with a tar mixing truck that was crossing the road. It was a close shave (thinking of it now, I can't really remember if I came to a halt or somehow went past the truck. It's all so blurry).

I was getting over that, trying to overtake a "slow" moving vehicle when I realized my car began to swerve. I was gone. At first, I was frantically trying to balance the car by turning the steering wheel when I remembered a tip someone had given me days before about this type of situation (don't turn the steering wheel, just hold it still).

I held the wheel still and instead of swerving, the car began to slide off the road. I came face to face with the bush by the road side and thought oh so this is it, then the car stopped.

All that happened in less than a minute and all I kept saying was Oh shit! Oh shit!. It was my lucky day, traffic wasn't heavy on that part of the road at that time otherwise...

There are two major lessons I learned from this experience and I have tried to talk about them.

See The Bigger Picture

If I had been driving slow enough, I would have noticed how close I was to the edge of the road and would have known that my tires would drop off the road if I tried to overtake at that point.

Speed, rushing to do things, most times makes our vision blurry. Decisions have to be made in split seconds and we only see what's in front of us instead of the bigger picture.

Choose Your Battles

With a very good sports car, on a very good road, the thrill of going on full speed can be really exciting but this wouldn't make any sense on a road with potholes.

In life, when you give yourself time to slow down and breathe, you're able to assess your options and choose whether to fight or not. It's when we see the bigger picture we are able to know how best to prioritize our options.