And you come crash, into me yeah.

This weekend was pretty damned brutal. I got in a car accident and now must enter and exit my vehicle through the passenger door. I have become quite swift actually, after 4 days. The accident happened, and the police officer arrived shortly thereafter. Boy was that an experience.

First of all, I was making a left turn onto a side road from Main St. There was no traffic light, just a left turn. I slow down and let oncoming traffic pass, signaled, and turned. Then.. WHAM. I am smashed on my driver's side from the vehicle behind me. The traffic flow was one lane in either direction separated by a double yellow line. No white dashed line separating lanes, etc. So why the woman was trying to pass me on either side, I am unsure. Regardless, the officer came and was rather unkind to me. And I realize I am at quite the disadvantage. I am from out of town, a 20 year old college student, and the other woman was local and middle aged. He was negative toward me, and completely stereotyped me from the get-go; thinking that I am a primadona Daddy's girl that doesn't know how to drive. Which is completely false on all accounts.

Later in Management class Monday evening, stereotypes were the ironic topic of discussion. I realized that many people hold preconceived notions and stereotypes about one another. Even I fall culprit on occasion. My professor, however, made a fantastic point to mention that by definition, stereotypes are inaccurate, false measures. Not that I believe them to be true in any fashion whatsoever, but it was enlightening to learn that even by definition stereotypes are categorized as false. It is common knowledge that stereotypes are wrong, but interesting to learn that they are literally false.

My new goal is to look at a person, and think of their best possible quality- and avoid stereotypes altogether. Like a police officer for instance, although I happened to encounter a not so friendly one, the stereotype that all officers are out to get you I should really drop. Maybe this new outlook will be apparent for next time I have a similar encounter (knock on wood!) and things will go a little more smoothly. I think this will apply to a lot of things in general, not just law enforcement authority figures.

Stay tuned.

Stereotypes are devices for saving a biased person the trouble of learning. -Unknown