Offensive Driving

I drove to work this morning. I left the same time I always do but arrived around 20 minutes later than usual. The reason for that is simple... an inspired collection of dumbass drivers who don't know the one primary rule of the road...

"Don't do anything to inhibit the traffic flow."

I indentified seven different annoying driver types this morning that really make my blood boil. There may be others. It's not, as you may suppose the aggressive, pushy drivers (who knows, I may actually be one of them) but an additional assortment of mental midgets. I've labelled them 'mr.', but take it from me, I'm an equal opportunity complainer and there are 'ms.' versions of all of these as well.

Mr Passive Aggressive.

This sweetheart drives along in the fast lane on the highway at 60 miles per hour and makes everybody drive around him. It never occurs to him that he's holding up traffic, or, if it does, he's just bloody minded and enjoys the fact. His mantra is "I'm doing the speed limit so how can I be doing anything wrong?". Tell you what, buddy... if you're holding up traffic, regardless of speed, you can be ticketed here in Ontario. There isn't a permanent cure for this type of idiocy but people (not me, of course) have been known to pull in front of them and gradually slow down until they are forced to pull over or get in the slow lane where they belong.

Mr Hanging Butt

You're casually tooling along in the fast lane on a one or two lane street when the guy in front decides he wants to turn left. There's a middle turn lane for exactly that but instead of pulling into it parallel to the traffic, he turns sharply sideways and leaves his sorry butt hanging out in the middle of the driving lane holding up traffic until he finally gets a chance to cross. I've been tempted to use my bumper to nudge the back of his car out of the way before and one of these days when I can claim senility as an excuse, I'll actually do it.

There's another kind as well. This one wants to hang a left but there's already a lot of cars in the turn lane. So instead of simply pulling in behind the last car and getting out of the way, he sits half blocking the fast lane he was in and waits until enough cars have turned the corner before he finally pulls over. In the meantime, he's apparently blissfully oblivious to the honking and yelling going on behind him.

Mr I'm too Rich to Wait in Line

This particular putz burns my shorts. I labelled it 'too rich to wait in line' because the only people I've seen doing this are usually driving big Mercedes, Lexus, Cadillac, or Rolls Royce sedans. They see a line-up of cars waiting to turn left at a traffic light that doesn't have an advanced red, so it takes a while to get around the corner. These morons are too important and impatient to get on the end of the line... instead they drive to a point maybe second or third in the line-up and put on their turn signal hoping someone will let them push in. What really burns my ass is that some people actually do let them in. While they are waiting, they block an entire driving lane and make people like me froth at the mouth.

Mr Last Minute Larry

Last minute Larry's are devil-may-care adventurers seemingly willing to die for their art. They wait until absolutely the last possible minute before forcing their way over into the next lane to turn - this can be either left or right. It's like they enjoy the challenge of cutting off a few people every time and still making it into the turn lane before being struck. It doesn't seem to matter whether you 'let' them cut in... they are coming willy-nilly and they usually leave you with the choice of either braking hard or actually hitting them. My advice, if you have the time to spare getting your car fixed (retirees, independently wealthy, etc) is to just cut off the gap between you and the car in front and let them hit you instead.

Mr Hard Shoulder

This guy may be a relative of the rich guy who hates to wait in line. You've all seen it. You're waiting in a line-up of cars at a traffic light or driving slowly in a traffic jam, and suddenly someone comes bursting up the hard shoulder and either tries to time the green light and cut back in, or cuts back into a gap in the slow moving traffic. Someone I know has been known to burn rubber out of a stop-light and force a driver off into a ditch to prevent the former. Don't these people know it's illegal... and just how much time do they save anyway?

Mr Politeness

Traffic is moving smoothly along and there's a car coming out of an auto dealership or a restaurant parking lot, for example, when the car in front of you stops suddenly... just to let the guy get into the stream of traffic. In order to do this, he has made another twenty drivers brake violently and interrupted the flow of traffic. I always give the offending SOB a blast of my horn and maybe a few 'traffic' signals with one finger. They look at me like, "Well, how dare you... I was just being polite..." and wave at you. "Have a nice day..." One of these days, someone is going to very politely kick your ass.

Mr Schmucker Trucker

Finally, a common highway hazard. Two massive and ponderous semis are tooling along at a leisurely ten miles an hour over the speed limit, however the truck in the rear is doing 0.00002 miles an hour faster than the one in front and catching up. Because he's apparently in a huge hurry, he pulls out and occupies the fast lane for a half hour or more while trying to pass the other truck. In the meantime, the rest of us that could pass both of them in a milisecond are stacked up like cordwood behind the inconsiderate bum.

I should mention here that most truck drivers are good and safe drivers and it's not their fault that they have a schedule to maintain... although how much impact driving 0.00002 miles an hour slower for a few miles is going to make on their overall schedule, Deity only knows...