The Largest Trust Experiment

Think of the times you have had to put your life in someone else’s hands; trusted them completely. How many times can you think of? A few? Maybe a dozen?

What if I told you that nearly every day you trusted your life to others?

Driving is the largest trust experiment humanity has ever conducted.

Everytime we drive our vehicles on public roads, we are piloting a multi-thousand pound, motorized, steel missile, frequently at 60+ MPH. As we do this, there are often other cars with human drivers just a few feet (sometimes inches) away and you must trust your life to the fact that they wish to avoid harm by following the rules of the road.

Of course, this experiment isn’t perfect. There are accidents every day. In fact, driving is statistically the most dangerous form of transportation. Yet, when the accident and death rates are looked at from the perspective of how many vehicles come so close together at speed every day, I consider them remarkably low.

I’ve written previously about how I believe strangers are generally good. I think modern-day driving is the perfect example of that. Of course there are some who express visible road rage and more who make mistakes due to inattention, but when compared with the sheer number of vehicles one encounters on the road, they truly are few and far between.