Recently, I was chatting with colleagues about traffic accidents. I casually mentioned that I had been rear-ended three times in the past decade, my tone even carrying a hint of 'lucky it wasn't worse.' To my surprise, a seasoned veteran driver nearby shook his head and shared his own story. Years ago, he too was a fast-driving 'speedster' — until he nearly rear-ended someone. The heart-pounding terror of that moment awakened him completely. From then on, he established four unshakable life-saving principles:
• **Slow down a bit**: On highways, strictly stay at or below 110 km/h unless absolutely urgent. This keeps your nerves relaxed while ensuring safety, and it barely adds any time.
• **Keep distance a bit**: Maintain a larger following distance to ensure adequate reaction buffer in emergencies.
• **Anticipate earlier**: When encountering traffic jams or abnormal behavior from the car ahead, decelerate immediately — never assume other drivers are fools.
• **Signal clearly**: When decelerating sharply, turn on hazard lights immediately to give the clearest possible warning to cars behind you.
Since adopting these four principles, this veteran driver has not had a single accident in many years.
Looking back at my own three rear-end collisions, I now realize they were a nightmare. The worst happened at 7 PM, just before the expressway toll gate. After the violent impact, I managed to move my car to the police booth, then struggled to drive to the exit. I waited for a tow truck, dealt with the repair shop, and didn't drag myself home until 1:30 AM. But that was just the beginning. The following days were consumed with endless errands: insurance assessment, delivering the car for repairs, coordinating repair plans, picking up the car — all told, it took at least 20 hours. Over three accidents, I lost over 60 hours to these hassles alone. This doesn't even include the anxiety during the accident, the inconvenience during repairs, or the potential safety risks.
Let's do the math: following those four principles for ten years would cost at most a few dozen extra hours — negligible. Yet that insignificant 'slowing down' saved me those harrowing 60-plus hours, and possibly more.
In this case, following rules and proactively defending against accidents — that's 'doing the right thing.' Once an accident happens, handling insurance, repairs, and claims properly — that's 'doing things right.' Clearly, the former is strategic wisdom, while the latter is tactical diligence. We're often too busy 'doing things right' after the fact, forgetting to 'do the right thing' beforehand. A true master of time management knows how to invest effort at the source — using minimal cost to avoid enormous risk. That is the most efficient way to live.