In the avoidance of accidents

On our way back from Crawley yesterday afternoon, we were turning onto the M4 from the M25. The gantry signs had recently flashed 60, and were now displaying 40 - accident on slip road. I slowed right down as I could see stationary traffic, but it turned out to be on the slip road going into London, not the opposite way that we were going. Some cars were trying to cut across the hatching.

I could see a car approaching in my rear view mirror, and I thought they were going a bit fast. I was going fairly slowly by this point, but the approaching car didn't seem to have realised I had slowed down and there was other stationary traffic.

I repeatedly pumped my brake to flash my brake lights at them, at which point the driver slammed on their brakes and locked up their wheels, the screech audible and smoke visible in my mirror. As I had slowed down I now had space in front of me, so I started accelerating to escape. As it turned out, I didn't really need to, thankfully. I also let in one of the people trying to cross the hatching.

With a bit of foresight through experience, it is possible to avoid some accidents. Always leave yourself an escape route.

The problem with choice

In an earlier post I mentioned the frustration of too much choice. It occurred to me that radio could be considered proof of this - sometimes (often?) people like not having to make decisions. It also means that you are exposed to things you might not normally experience. TV is the same - it may be old fashioned of me but I actually think that TV was better when there were just four channels. Having so much choice has in my opinion diluted the impact of an individual channel, and hence the quality has gone down. Additionally, attention spans have decreased as people 'channel surf' for their preferred viewing.

kissycat1000 points out that having specific channels devoted to interest areas is a good way of exploring new material in an area that interests you - so that is one benefit of the greater choice now available.

What do you guys think? Do you welcome choice, or find it can paralyse you?