Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Learn to Drive!
While working tonight (busy at first, but by 7:30p business had quickly grinded to a halt), I was following behind somebody in a little black Camry who was going 40 miles per hour in a zone where the limit was 55. Being in a hurry to drop off two deliveries, I found myself growing more and more frustrated with the driver in front of me. But while I was slowly puttering along behind the fool in the Camry, a great idea occured to me: I'll make a blog entry about this! Not only that situation, of course, but about all the things other drivers do on the road that piss me off.
So here is a list of driving habits that make me angry:
So here is a list of driving habits that make me angry:
- Driving slow. I'm starting my list off with the example I already used. There is no reason to drive 15 miles under the speed limit, unless there are no speed limit signs posted and you truly do not know how fast you're allowed to go. In the particular situation I experienced tonight, there were signs that said "Speed limit 55" about every half mile on the long two-lane road I was driving. I don't think there's much more to say about that. On a related note, driving the posted limit is still too slow. It's the law, I know, but if I lived in an area where cops were prone to pull somebody over for going five miles over the limit, I probably wouldn't have taken a job as a professional driver. If you can see a car coming up behind you quickly, the polite thing to do is reduce your speed slightly, pull onto the shoulder, and wave them by.
- Driving fast. I hope I don't sound like too much of a hypocrite listing this one immediately after the last one, but it is another thing that pisses me off. I'm not talking about people who drive five miles over the limit; I do that. I'm not even talking about people who drive ten miles over the limit. That's fine too. As for highway speeding, go right ahead. But when I'm on a city street going 50 in a 45 zone and somebody whizzes past me going at least 60, that's uncalled for. There may be that rare occasion where you have a passenger about to give birth, or maybe who was just shot, but more often than not I think the people who speed like this are just assholes. Slow down before you kill someone, moron.
- Not using turn signals. This is probably my biggest peeve while driving. Your car came fully equipped with turn signals- one for left and one for right. Fucking use them! You went through driving school, where you learned to use your turn signals while turning, but also for changing lanes. Why is it you don't do that? Don't tell me your signals are broken; there are hand signals for that. An arm out the window parallel to the ground means left, while an arm bent at the elbow at a 90 degree angle means right. If you don't use your turn signals and suddenly hit your brakes for a turn, everyone will think you're a fucking asshole. Not only are you endangering us by hitting your brakes suddenly, but you're also endangering us by not warning us that you're about to turn. People who don't flip on their signal until halfway through the turn fall in this category of assholes. Really? You're turning? I COULDN'T TELL!
- Cutting people off. These are usually the people who drive unnecessarily fast and don't use their turn signals. I don't think I need to say anything about this one, because anybody who cuts people off is an asshole, and anyone who doesn't will agree.
- Not knowing how traffic lights work. One of the routes I often take to get back to the store from a delivery requires me to make a U-turn. If I have a green light (especially if I have an arrow) I will make that turn. People who are perpendicular to me and have a red light but are in the right turn lane do not have the right of way. If you're trying to make a right turn but have a red light, you need to wait until the coast is clear. If there are people in the left turn lane who have a green light, you need to wait and make sure they're not taking a U-turn before going. One of these days, some asshole is going to make me get in a wreck at that intersection because they don't know how traffic lights work.
- Not knowing how stop signs work. Stop signs are big red octagonal signs that say "STOP" on them in big white letters. That means stop.
- Likewise, people who don't know how four-way stops work also piss me off. At a four-way stop, you wait your turn. People will cross the intersection in the order they pulled up to a stop sign. If somebody on the other side of the road pulled up before you, they have the right of way. Not you. I don't care how long it takes. If there are still people waiting to go who were there before you, it's not your turn.
- Tailgaters. Again, these are usually the people who drive way too goddamn fast. Forget what I said in point 1 about pulling onto the shoulder for a moment. If someone's driving 20 miles over the limit, they need to slow the fuck down, so I'm not planning on getting out of the way. If they start tailgating me, I may just slow down a couple miles to piss 'em off. I'm already going 5-10 miles over the limit. You don't need to. If I pull up behind someone who's going slower than me and they don't let me by, I'll just slow down to their speed and back off a little. Clearly these people won't be moving, so there's no point in riding their ass.
- People who "trick out" their cars. C'mon, guys. A 12-inch high spoiler on a Honda Civic just isn't cool. It looks fucking retarded, that's all. Maybe you should spend your money on something a bit more worthwhile, say... getting that baseball-sized hole in your windshield repaired, or fixing that smashed up bumper.
- Hotshots who spin their wheels at intersections. Here's a true story: I was sitting inside a restaurant near a busy intersection when I looked up to see some guy in an SUV spinning his tires the moment a light turned green and knocking all sorts of shit (dust, as well as probably rocks and other things that can be found on roads) onto the convertable with its top down behind him. What a motherfucking asshole. Seriously. What in the hell compells people to do stupid shit like that? If I was the passenger in his car I would've punched him in the arm for that. Then again, if I was a passenger in his car it would probably mean I'm his asshole friend and I would've guffawed like a high school jock.
- Driving with no headlights on. When it's dark, you're supposed to have headlights on. Not just so you can see, but so others can see you. Driving without your headlights is likely to cause an accident. Similarly, driving with your parking lights on is stupid. If it's so dark that you have to turn on your dashboard lights to see it, you can assume it's just as dark outside, so turn on your goddamn headlights.
- Driving with brights on. Some people, when it's dark, will go ahead and automatically turn on their brights. It doesn't even matter to them how many people are around them on the road. If the headlights come on, so do the brights. ARE YOU TRYING TO CAUSE AN ACCIDENT, YOU FUCKING IDIOT? Driving with your brights on can temporarily blind someone, which means THEY CAN'T SEE. They could drive off the road or hit another car, perhaps even your car. Do you really want to damage your car? No? Then turn off the brights and be respectful of drivers around you.
That's all I can come up with right now, but expect future installments of posts like these when I either see or just think of something else. Go ahead and tell me the things that piss you, my readers, off when it comes to driving. This is a topic anyone can enjoy. Unless, of course, you're one of the assholes it applies to. In that case, get off your computer and go take some goddamn driving lessons.
# posted by D @ 8:30 PM 
