A Not-So-Shortcut

I know it's cliche to say that shortcuts rarely end up actually making the journey shorter, but the thing about cliches is that there is always some truth to them. On Sunday I had stopped to get some gas and as I was getting ready to pull away from the pump a pick-up truck was pulling in from the street. I assumed the pick-up was heading to a pump, but instead of stopping to get gas the driver followed me out the other exit. You see, this was one of those stations that is at an intersection and the pick-up driver was cutting through the station to avoid the light. This confused me for a few reasons: first off, has this ever worked? Do you really gain that much time by going through a parking lot, which instinctively makes you slow down because you never know where people are going to pop out from and there are a lot more cars? I know that technically you cover less distance, but I would assume when you factor in speed, staying on the road is the faster route.

Even though I don't think trying to cut the corner gets you where you want to go any faster, I can at least understand it when you are at a red light, you want to turn onto the next street but there is not room enough for you to get by and turn on red. In that situation, driving through a parking lot could save you some time. (I don't do that kind of thing but, let's be honest, I'm rarely in that much of a hurry to get anywhere.) That was the second reason this guy confused me: he wasn't even looking at a red light. The traffic in his direction had momentarily stopped, but the light had gone green and the cars were moving fast enough he probably never would have come to a complete stop. I'm very familiar with the idea of 'shark driving' (driving 10 miles out of the way to avoid traffic because you're rather be moving in a sideways direction versus sitting still in traffic), but that usually only happens when you are looking at miles and miles of delays, not 8 seconds at a red light.

At this point you may be thinking he was trying to get away from a slower car in front of him, because we all know that driving behind the same car for a prolonged period of time causes you to irrationally hate that car and its driver, but that wasn't the case, either. He would have been the only person at his light to make a turn. Anyway, since this guy ended up right behind me and I saw he was in such a hurry that saving 15 total feet of driving was this important, I expected him to be on my bumper immediately. That was the third confusing moment: after turning onto the street he wasn't driving very fast. In fact, by going (roughly) the speed limit, he was out of my mirror in a couple of minutes. Color me thoroughly confused. A minute ago you couldn't be bothered to pause for a momentary complete stop at a red light and now you're on a leisurely Sunday drive. At this point I was worried the truck might be having brake issues. But, when I came to the next light he pulled up behind me and stopped without a squeak, screech or squeal.

Now, I know trying to figure out what another driver may have been thinking in the moment is a wasted exercise: some people are just weird and therefore do weird things, whether they are behind the wheel of a car or not. So, I'm not going to even try to speculate about why this guy felt it was necessary to cut through this gas station parking lot even though it probably ended up taking longer than if he had just turned at the light. Instead, I'm just going to say this: unless a shortcut can save you several minutes or several miles, it's not a shortcut, it's just an alternate route. And if it involves cutting through a parking lot, it's neither.