Mock Monday: The Set-Up

October 24, 2011

Terry Dactyl is a 32 year old, married mother of two. She drives a 2009 Toyota Sienna. Today was a typical Monday. She got up, got ready for work {made sure her briefcase with iPhone, iPad and MacBook were in her car}, made her husband's lunch {what a nice wife}, made her lunch {she's a budgeter}, got her children ready for school and daycare {made their lunches - I think she had an assembly line going} and headed out the door. She buckled her 6 year old, Todd, into his booster seat and her 3 year old, Irina, into her car seat. Terry pulled out of the driveway and headed to Irina's daycare.

Terry is real careful when she drives with her kids. She doesn't text, her stearing wheel has built-in bluetooth for those necessary phone calls, and she drives the speed limit.
As Terry drives for Irina's daycare she starts to think about what she has to do today at work. She notices a blue pick-up driving erratically on the highway just ahead of her.

Her heart beats quickly as she thinks about what could happen. She slows down below the speed limit. The erratic driver slows down. She puts her blinker on to change lanes and the erratic driver speeds up. At this point Terry doesn't know what to do. She stays in the passing lane, speeds up much faster than usual and passes the erratic driver. She then changes lanes and continues along with traffic. All of a sudden she feels a bump from behind. Both her kids scream in the backseat. She slams on her brakes, but not soon enough. She rear-ends the driver in front of her.
What should Terry's next step be?

  1. Get out of her car.
  2. Honk her horn.
  3. Call the police.

Check back here next Monday for an answer to Terry's next step and how she should proceed once she took care of the next step.

*Please note, no REAL persons were involved. This is pretend. Nothing of this is real.