2007-10-17
Driving Me Crazy
I used to just float my car to work in the morning, leisurely enjoying time with Public Radio and music and loving it when I timed the lights correctly.
Unfortunately in many ways, Tucson is growing at warp speed and with no efficient public transportation and no freeway system, this means that traffic is ridiculous.
I have become an angry, aggro driver who shouts at the cars in front of me and gestures wildly when some idiot makes a U-Turn where the sign clearly says "No U-Turns."
Often, traffic is backed up in a long line at red lights and if I am trying to turn onto a side-street and another, inconsiderate driver blocks me by pulling up to the bumper of the car in front of him, I shrug exaggeratedly and throw my palms up in the air and shake my head, as if to say, "You asshole. Why? Why block my turn? You see me sitting here, you see my blinker and it would have been so easy to stop 20 feet ago and let me make my turn!!"
I get behind a gigantic truck that I can't see around and I have a fit, I FIT, I tell you.
I do not understand why people have to drive massive SUVs and pick-up trucks that would move my entire furniture inventory with room to spare; more so, I don't understand why they feel like they have to be in front of me.
Let me go first.
I won't be blocking your view and you are impinging on my ability to drive safely.
People who speed in and out of traffic would hear me say, "I hope you wreck your car!" if they were going slow enough to hear anything traveling at the normal speed of sound.
Pedestrians who are crossing the street half a block from a crosswalk make my blood boil.
This is not China.
We have crosswalks and rules and no expectation that a person on foot is going to be standing in the middle of the road, half a block from a crosswalk, waiting for a hundred cars to pass so you can run the rest of the way across the street.
If I hit you, I'm going to get my bumper fixed for free and you're not going to be able to sue me.
The crosswalk is RIGHT THERE!
You're walking already!
Keep walking - 20 more paces and you could sue me for all $12 if I were to hit you!
People who slow to a stop as they make a right turn need to go back to driving school.
You know your turn is coming up, you're in the right lane because your turn is coming up.
It's so easy to travel at a speed that will accommodate only a slight slowing of your vehicle.
No, instead, there are people who drive 40 miles an hour then put their turn signals on at the last minute and hit the brakes to make the turn.
They don't seem to realize that this makes me and several other drivers behind me feel that uncomfortable feeling of our stomachs dropping and returning a little too fast for comfort.
I also get incensed with the people who don't travel at a constant rate of speed. There is a speed limit. If a car is traveling more slowly, I am likely to move into another lane temporarily so that I can travel the speed limit. Often, when I do this, the Slowmobile speeds up and makes it impossible for me to get back in the middle lane... the lane where nobody is making any sudden freaking turns, the lane where I belong because I am a good driver. I don't know how many times each morning I am stuck behind Slowskis who speed up and slow down and make is essentially impossible to maintain a constant rate of speed ergo impossible to time the lights favorably.
I am obsessively rigid about things like waiting for a pedestrian to be completely out of the cross walk before I turn and I ironically get really angry when a fellow-driver gets mad at me for abiding by the rules.
Ditto for the flashing-light crosswalks.
Just because the pedestrian is nowhere in sight, if the light is flashing, I have to stop.
I see drivers behind me throwing up their own hands in disgust as I smugly proceed through the intersection with caution.
Finally, people who turn into the wrong lane really piss me off. There are a lot of double left-hand turn lanes in Tucson. So many people turn wide and almost hit me as I make my clean, legally perfect turn.
My instinct is to pull my car in front of them, making a roadblock and school them about the laws of turn lanes.
Since this isn't practical, I give them a dirty look and throw up my hands in disgust before I continue with caution and an uncanny awareness of the traffic that's near me.
arizonasarah at 2:45 p.m.