Tuesday, August 4, 2009

If You Drive Like This, You STINK!

On the way to work today, I got two rare treats in one fell swoop. I was first in line at a red light (first to race off) and I saw the following happen right in front of me.

This intersection has at least 3 lanes in each direction, and TWO left turning lanes cross in front of where I was stopped. An orange compact hatchback car was making a left turn in front of me, from the lanes on my right to the lanes parallel to mine, on the left. It was a young male driver. He was on the phone, holding the phone with his Right hand (hand #1). I noted that his shift from first to second gear took an exceptionally long time (2/3+ of the intersection) and looked over to see why. . . he was using his Left hand (hand #2) to shift gears. The gearshift was on his right side (middle of the car, driver in the left seat). He was leaning down, while talking on the phone with his right hand, and reaching all the way across himself with his left hand to shift the gears.

This was during a morning rush hour, in heavy traffic, on a 90ยบ turn. How did he steer? Well, that's why he was leaning down . . . hand #3 was his CHIN ON THE STEERING WHEEL!

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Oh, and a big "THANKS ALOT, [deleted]!" to the driver of a Mustang on the way home yesterday, who suddenly decided to put their car in the same space/time node as mine. Note: This does not work very well. I put both my accelerator pedal and steering wheel to good use, as well as part of the paved median between directions of vehicle travel, avoiding becoming a statistic because this [deleted] could not be bothered to check their blind spot before RIGHTNOW changing lanes. I cut THEM off with maybe a meter or two to spare, and I hope they came about 2% shy of a myocardial infarction when (if?) they realized what they almost did.

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