I know that my sample size is comically small, but in my experience, the scariest drivers I've ridden with as a passenger - out of the experienced drivers, who have been behind the wheel for decades, and excluding people who just got their licence - have been full-time professional artists. Like I have ridden shotgun with exactly two fully grown adults who were memorable to me as being "holy shit!" experiences, and one of them was a sculptor and the other one was an opera singer. Neither one actually hit anyone or anything, but the sheer amount of close brushes they had and casually breezed through was more than any other car ride I've ever been on, combined.
The fact that I am now a full-time professional artist, and also the worst driver I know, supports my theory. I don't drive unless there's nobody else who possibly can, and I tell people that I can't drive - I have a licence, but that doesn't mean I can drive. I am merely legally allowed to do that.
Ambulance drivers are on the opposite side of this spectrum.
As my sample size is ewually comically small (2) I rode with a Firefighter/Nurse/Paramedic who spent years as the ambulance driver, and a friend who is neither of those but was an ambulance driver for 10 years.
Riding with either of them is the most relaxing and the most stressful of experiences at the same time.
It's extremely relaxing at the point when you get used to the fact that they treat road signs as mere suggestions combined with freakishly great reflexes developed at driving a giant chunk of metal past speed limits to save lives for years.
Before that point? It's oh-shit-handle worthy. Especially when another driver makes a mistake, and you can already see the crash in your mind's eye, but it never comes. If I was with any other driver, I know they wouldn't have reacted quick enough, it would at least be a minor collision. Instead they manouvre the hurling hunk of metal you're in with the grace of a ballerina.
Now, I trust them completely. I can sleep in the back of the car, mindful to have something soft wrapped around my head for the inevitable erratic manouvre, knowing I'm safe.
I trust them with my entire life.




















