I See Dead People....Too

Years ago, I taught people to drive big trucks. In most cases, there was a certain amount of fear involved...which I thought was a good thing.

In fact, during orientation, I would talk to my students about what we were about to do over the next few days, and then ask, "Anybody nervous?"

Every once in a while, I would get somebody who said, "No! Not me."

I usually stood up at that point and offered to get them another instructor.

It was a dangerous thing we did, and I wanted people who respected that.

As instructors, we got safety reports from the company and tended to keep our eyes and ears open for safety matters.

One point was interesting to me.

New drivers had the most accidents, but "experienced" drivers tended to have the worst accidents.

You see, new drivers were scared of everything that might happen. They were worried about doing the wrong thing. What they were often intensely worried about was hurting someone...not themselves, but somebody else.

Experienced drivers tended to throw the rulebook out the window and drive based on the idea that they knew everything they needed to do. That's one of the reasons they had high speed, expensive, accidents with lots of death and destruction.

I had one student who was doing well until the day we hooked up a trailer and started pulling it around Dallas. His ability to handle the truck became worse and worse.

Finally, I had a talk with him.

Know what he said?

"Don. I see dead people."

That's a quote, by the way,

This was after the move "Sixth Sense" with Bruce Willis, had come out, so, at first, I thought he was just using that line from the movie to make a point.

After a minute, however, I began to realize that this guy probably had never even heard of the movie.

He was simply stating what was weighing on his mind.

He was scared to death that he would be the cause of someone else's death or injury.

I see dead people too. I have seen bodies covered with a blue tarp on the side of the road. I have attended funerals for people who made the wrong decision.

It makes me think.

That's often why I do the things I do...right or wrong, by the way...the dead people I have seen.

That's also often why, after the first rush of anger at someone else's thoughtless or dangerous behavior, I remind myself, that they have not seen what I have seen. They have not had the opportunity to learn what I have learned.

I hope that I'm too "experienced" with life to have most of the small accidents that newcomers to the game tend to have. I also hope that I have experienced enough life to avoid the bad ones...if I just stay "scared" enough.

I've seen enough dead people.