As I was driving home from dinner tonight, I witnessed an interesting and telling sight at a traffic light. I was stopped at a red light near Perimeter Mall in Atlanta, Georgia. At this particular spot, the road is six lanes across (three lanes traveling one direction, three the opposite). The cars turning left (perpendicular to the 6 lanes) were led by a car driven by someone who was either not familiar with the road, not paying attention, drunk, or some combination thereof, because the car turned to the left of the median. That is, counting from left to right, where the 1 is the left-most lane and 6 is the right most lane (4, 5, and 6 being 'permissible' lanes for someone turning left), the car turned into lane 3.
The fact that one car turned into lane three is not significant. What I found striking was that the three cars behind the lead car all followed the lead car into lane 3. The lead car went so far into the oncoming traffic lane that it had to reverse in order to get into the correct lane. In total, like lemmings running off of a cliff, four cars went into the wrong lane.
Giving the driver the benefit of the doubt, one might say that low light conditions (given the fact that it was night-time; about 10 PM) made it difficult to the lane demarcations. Perhaps. Even so, I think it is very telling that not one, but three others followed right in the lead car's tracks into the wrong lane and into oncoming traffic.
I think this episode is a great metaphor for people's actions generally. When driving, we often do not think or pay attention. Rather, we follow the lead car and stick to the flow of traffic. If the guy ahead of us swerves, we're likely to swerve too, even if we haven't yet seen the obstacle in the road. When the car ahead of us is driving in a straight line or heading in a certain direction, we assume that driver is paying attention and we follow blindly along, even though we can not see what lies ahead of the lead car.
Just as this string of cars I witnessed tonight was being led by an incompetent leader, we are often led by (and blindly follow) incompetent leaders. We follow not because of the proven skill of the leader, but merely because they are in front. We follow incompetent managers, corrupt politicians, health gurus, and ad men merely because they are in front of us. Are we lemmings, not thinking for ourselves but merely running the course set before us by the object directly in front of us?
Have you ever witnessed such a lemmings moment? If so, please share your experience.
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