Tales From the Road

Tap! Tap! Tap!  Is this thing on?

I apologize.  I haven't been here, haven't been answering the door. It's that roller coaster blogging you know, up and then down ...

So.  This is an official blog post.

*clears throat*

*cracks knuckles*

What's wrong with people these days?  I will admit I can have a heavy foot on the road.  People driving slowly in the passing lane make me crazy, as do people who tailgate.  I yell at people in my car, I whine and moan and complain.  Oh yes, and swear.  But I do not purposefully do nasty retaliatory things to other drivers.  The most I do is throw my arms up like "HEY".  Other than that, I'm all talk inside my own car.  But lately there have been 2 incidents that really gave me pause.

Is it dangerous out there?  Are these people crazy?

Driving home from work I came to a point where traffic was backed up to where if I crossed the
intersection where there was a green light, I would have been blocking cross traffic if the light turned red.  Which could earn me a ticket, by the way.  So I stopped at the side street and waited.  Either the traffic would start to move and I would cross the intersection right away, or it would turn red and I would have to wait for the next green light.  Such is driving home in traffic.

When I stopped, the car behind me beeped his horn and when I didn't immediately take his subtle suggestion to move forward and block the intersection - he laid on the horn.  It wasn't just beeeeeeeeeeeeep or even beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep, it was beeeeee-until-the-light-turned-red-and-all-the-way-until-the-light-turned-green-again-eeeeeep!!

Seriously.  He laid on it and did not let up until the light turned green again and I moved forward.  Then he pulled around as soon as he could so he could drive along side me and do God knows what - I don't know what he did because I didn't look at him.  Man!  Too much coffee??  Bad day at the office???

Tonight, again driving home from work - this time on the highway, traffic was jam packed which isn't unusual and somehow makes me a little zen knowing there isn't anything any of us can do about it so let's all go 25 mph until we can go faster.

About a mile from my exit I needed to move into the right lane and when a car on my right moved forward and then switched lanes to get in front of me - I saw my chance, put my turn signal on and moved to the right.  Well apparently the car that had been behind the car that got in front of me (c'mon, keep up!) had decided to make up ground at warp speed and as soon as the car wasn't in front of him anymore - he sped up really fast, just as I was moving over.  So HE laid on the horn.  But I was already in the lane so I did the sad little hand wave with the bowed head to say I was sorry.

That was that, right?

You jest.

This guy immediately got up on my tail and turned on some handy dandy spotlight he had, and aimed it directly into my side mirror - and my eyes.  At first I thought it was just his headlights because he was driving a pickup truck that was higher than my car, but no.  When my exit came the pickup driver moved to the left and out of the 'exit only' lane he had been driving in, and I saw him turn the spotlight off.  The man purposely got as close as he could to me and shone an intensely bright light into my eyes for at least a half a mile and as far as I can tell, only stopped because I took the off-ramp!!

If I cut the man off - it was not intentional.  I apologized the only way I could from my car.  But apparently my error was egregious enough to retaliate against me in a spiteful and dangerous way.

What the hell?  Really?

I'm 54 years old. I've gotten a few tickets in my life - for speeding.  The only accident I ever had involved only me, no other drivers or cars.  So I can't be that bad when it comes to driving!  I can only assume that people out there are completely deranged, unhinged and totally unpredictable and I should always be aware of that while on the road.

Or maybe I should start taking the train.  Sheesh!