So, today I made the same trip I’ve made a hundred times to NY. We got a late start on the trip because I was stuck in work until 6:30. We finally got on the road at about 7:15. I figured traffic will be light so I would be able to miss alot of traffic and enjoy the ride after a long day. Boy was I wrong.
I can’t stand people. What is it about getting in a car and driving that turns people into raging f*&#!$ idiots? Take one excerpt from my trip as an example. I am in the left lane, traveling at a reasonable 75mph (speed limit on the Mass Turnpike is 65mph) and passing traffic traveling in the right lane. As I am passing a large column of vehicles (no doubt traveling the speed limit), a set of headlights begins to come up behind me at a fairly good pace. I judged he was probably traveling at least 80mph or so. So this guy has a 5mph speed advantage over me and can clearly see he is gaining ground on me. He can also see that I am passing traffic at a reasonable pace as well. What does he decide to do? Tailgate me of course. It’s the only logical thing to do while hurtling down the highway in a 2000lb hunk of metal at speeds that humans were actually not physically designed to travel (or stop from at that matter). I continue at my aforementioned speed (I have cruise control after all) and give a slight flash of my brake lights to inform him that I do not appreciate the proximity of his front bumper to my rear bumper. His response is to then flash his high beams, as if to say “Hey, I realize that we are both already breaking the law and there is a line of traffic obviously traveling slower than you, but I need to be traveling even faster than we are already.” Of course, my natural reaction is to use his high-beams to create a shadow puppet of the “New Jersey Salute”. This didn’t have any good consequence, all he managed to do is back off slightly…maybe 5 feet. At this point, if it were light out, I wouldn’t be able to see any part of the front of his car, save the windshield.
Finally, to end the encounter, my wife berated me into getting over. I did so begrudgingly and then proceeded to get nearly in his blind spot and watched for my lights reflecting off of his side-view mirror to show up in the interior of his car. This continued until I finally had to exit. I think I took the high road on that one.
Anyway, the point of the story (and there are many more similar) is that people are stupid. Common sense doesn’t apply in any situation any more and everyone else has a more important “something” to get to than everyone else. Safety is no longer a question in anyone’s mind. As is evident from the myriad of stories dealing with cell-phone use and accidents. I have plenty of stories about that too.
I think my biggest peeve driving is tailgating/following too closely. If I am clearly passing a line of cars, what benefit do you get from tailing me so closely I can see your eye color through my rear-view? Does pissing the guy off who is essentially controlling the speed you can travel really benefit you? What I normally like to do in that situation is give a quick tap of the brakes (brake checks are completely pointless) and then find the next closest car to me in the adjacent lane and match speed with him with just enough room that the asshat behind me is tempted to get over but would never be able to physically fit his car through. It’s satisfying, and really pisses the prick off.
If you are too close to me, what happens if I stop quick? Right, I’ll be your new hood ornament and your stereo will now be in my dashboard. I don’t want to do that paperwork, nor do I want to risk my pregnant wife either being injured in an accident, lastly, I would hate to have to deal with explaining to the police the injuries that are clearly not from the accident.
Ugh. I could go on with this forever but I won’t. Just thinking about stupid people (and you all are) infuriates me.
Believe it or not I actually tried posting from my phone while I was stuck on duty last night but for some reason the editor decided to delete everything that I wrote. Oh well.
If there was something super-important for me to post about I would have made sure to put it up. Someone give me an idea for writing.
I know I said in my last post that I was going to go ahead and start blogging about being a soon-to-be father and all, but I need more than that…daily life is pretty tame, even with a 7 month pregnant wife.
I did consider writing a little serial story, sort of Dickens-esque. I need a good idea for a story though…maybe I’ll work on that and have a weekly edition, like every Friday or something.
Yeah, I’m gonna go with that. We’ll see what I can do.
So here I am, 10pm on a Sunday. My lazy ass is usually in bed by this time. I’m here though. I’m going to give this blogging thing “the old college try”…again. It seems that I was a little lax in my updates before. Blame it on lots of things, my job, my home life, or having a life all together at that. Either way, I am committed to this now. I pay for this web service and this domain name so here I am declaring that I will, by God, keep up to date with this now.
With that said, I know no one reads this but I think I’ll have a go at it anyway. I need a theme now…not a wordpress theme or anything but a theme of this blog. Life in general seems like a good idea but there are so many sites for that it seems well over done. Maybe I can blog about life as a married guy with a child on the way…there are a few of them but I think my outlook might be a little different, I’m not sure if there is one dedicated to the life of a 27 (soon to be 28) year old married submariner with a wife of 3 years and a baby on the way in November.
Maybe now I’ve hit my niche.