Have you ever wondered what causes us, as human beings, to have such an intense curiosity as to almost cause a car accident in order to slow down and view someone else's unfortunate circumstances?
Let's see what Wiki has to say...
"Rubbernecking describes the act of gawking at something of interest. It is often used to refer to drivers trying to view the carnage resulting from a traffic accident. The term refers to the craning of a person's neck in order to get a better view. Rubbernecking has also been described as a human trait that is associated with morbid curiosity. It can be the cause of traffic jams (sometimes referred to as "Gaper's blocks"), as drivers slow down to see what happened in a crash. It is also a cause of accidents as drivers become distracted and change their rate of travel while other drivers are also distracted. Rubbernecking has also come to be used more generally to describe voyeuristic interest in someone else's "business" or difficulties."
We should all face facts, it's not just when we are our driving along the highway that people feel the need to know....it's really in all aspects of our life. Case in point, how many folks found themselves tuning in to CNN or the weather channel to watch the most recent season of winter storms and the results of all the natural disasters that have occurred recently? No matter what the source of the information happens to be, we all seem to be great big sponges soaking up all these random facts that very often never affect our individual lives.
I will be the first one to admit that for many years, I was completely fascinated with every intriguing detail of a well written true crime novel. For me it was always the whole package, not just the carnage that resulted from the actions of the convicted felons. I found myself following the footsteps of investigators, family members, witnesses and in some instances, depending on the author's chosen style of writing, even the criminals themselves. Most all of it was so far outside of my own personal realm of possibility, that I considered myself a voyeur of sorts, peeking into this world of the unknown. It would not be until years later that the horrifying and often times gruesome reality began to affect me. And, as with everything else that interests me at one time or another in my life, at some point I just grew bored with this type of novel and moved on to other subject matter reading material.
As I've mentioned several times, I don't watch the news...nor do I read the newspaper, other than glancing at the headlines of the Palm Beach Post each day as I walk into the mail room at work. Its such a time consuming effort to either sit with the tv on and/or pick up a paper to catch a glimpse of what is going on in the rest of the world. I find that very little of the information is ever good news, and 99.9% of it never contributes in any way, shape or form to my own life. There are only a few times that anything I read will even bring a smile to my face, and most stories just simply make me sad...and that is not how I want to spend any portion of my day. Believe me, I am aware of plenty of things that occur on this earth, (because nothing ever changes), I manage to not spend my precious time dwelling or focusing on them. Unless of course, I am forced to...ah, yes....that would include the day I spent in court this week on jury duty.
In one word....PAINFUL....but then again, when have I ever been known to describe any situation in only one word...not an easy task for me. Well, here's a few more.....boring.....intrusive....insulting...intimidating...inquisition....uncomfortable...inconvenienced...misleading....exhausting....I could go one, but I will spare you.
Now before you go all "civic duty" on me (as one of my coworkers did-and I almost wanted to knock her upside the head....oops, I mean tell her how I really felt-but instead I held my tongue-why do I do that????), I did sit on a jury for a medical malpractice case, for 10 looooong days. I was the jury foreman (NOT by choice), and unfortunately, due to one of the male members of the jury, it ended in a mistrial. While some (translation=very little) of it was interesting, a good portion of it was extremely repetitive, and looking back, I would have preferred to skip the entire experience. However, I've been thrilled that for the last 10 years, since we moved to Florida, up until last month, I had never received a summons. Well, after this past Monday, I will NEVER respond in person to a jury duty summons EVER again.
I knew that the 30 of us were pulled from the few hundred people in the jury pool for a criminal trial, when I saw police officers in the hallway outside the courtroom. That not only made me very uncomfortable, I was also unsettled after recalling what had occurred 10 years ago. My first clue that the case could get ugly was before I even entered the courtroom and we all witnessed a teenage boy come flying through the doors running in the opposite direction from the sheriff.
We all spent a good portion of the remainder of that day inside the courtroom and needless to say, it was not a very pleasant experience. At the end of the process, I was very happy to not be chosen (I might have pissed off the judge when I made a few statements about my intense dislike of firearms) to sit on the jury for this trial. Although after being interrogated by the eloquent prosecutor, humble defense attorney, the obnoxious and somewhat bored judge, I felt like I had just been on trial myself. As the convicted felon (repeat offender--surprise, surprise) sat in front of us, we were each questioned individually for hours on end. Let me remind you, I spend 40 hours a week in the circuit civil world, and there is a very definite reason I have never had any desire to be involved in the criminal justice system.
Please do not misunderstand me, I took my previous jury duty very seriously and was saddened for the plaintiff when the mistrial occurred. However, that does not change my opinion regarding the aspects of being personally involved as a juror in a criminal trial. In the same way that I choose to ignore the local news, not any part of me wanted to know what this person had done in his past or what had occurred to bring him before a judge once again. I was fully prepared to allow any of the other potential jurors to take a spot before me, and answered every question honestly and "to the best of my ability" which obviously resulted in the favorable outcome I was hoping for...to spend any additional time or days at the courthouse was certainly not my goal.
It is obvious when being involved in these types of situations, which folks are only too happy to be privy to the details of a plaintiff or defendant's life and would like nothing more than to be picked for a jury, whether criminal in nature or not. I've assisted with selecting a jury on several of our cases and it's really never a pleasant experience for any of the parities involved. To be perfectly honest, I'm not all that fond of the time I'm required to spend in the presence of any judge....which can only mean I must be in the wrong profession!!!!
It is human nature to be curious, however, I consider the options a bit more carefully before putting myself in the uncomfortable position of deciding to look a little closer at the details of the lives of those around me. With plenty in my life still ahead of me to enjoy and experience, there's really no reason, nor do I want to spend any additional time, focusing on much more than that. Since I had two bones in my neck fused together in 2007, I just don't feel the need to stretch it as far as I did in the past...perhaps my rubbernecking days are just about over.
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