I Didn't Check My E-Mail?

I must not have got the memo or something.  Was it just me, or was everyone going 70% of the posted speed limit the last two days, whether it was raining or not?

Please, for the love of my sanity, people get out of the *passing* lane when you are going 35 in a 50 or 60 in a 70 or whatever.

VFD, First On The Scene!

Apparently I *barely* missed being tied up in traffic stopped for a mile this morning . . . so I went back and spent several minutes looking at the mess and taking pictures.

This was the scene at Braker and Parkfield in Austin earlier today.  Trust me when I tell you that by the time I had arrived (maybe 5 minutes after I decided to turn around) the line of cars was at least over the hill, probably all the way back to Lamar.

A tanker truck driver missed his turn by a foot or two, and damaged his trailer as well as a utility pole.

The pole was well and truly embedded in the side of the tanker trailer

The trailer took heavy damage and appears to have only stopped when it hit the tank-supporting structure near the rear wheels of the trailer.  A hose on the side of the trailer was ripped in pieces, and the ladder was destroyed.  The dank obviously was badly dented/crushed where it touched the pole

This is usually a nice suburban neighborhood street.  Nothing much happens, till all traffic on a the busy thoroughfare is stopped by a random crazy situation.

Braker is full of cars in the morning.  This morning it was full of stopped cars as the Austin Police Department stopped traffic in both directions so AusTex Towing & Recovery could safely get this tanker disentagled from the pole.

The wrecker lifted the rear wheels of the trailer, and pulled the trailer away from the pole as a driver in the blue tractor slowly drove backwards onto Braker

Blue police lights are reflected in the waves of crumpled steel in the side of the trailer. 

Austin Energy was out in force.  Here their linemen are examining the pole struck by the truck.  It had a significant amount of wood rubbed off by the truck, here seen as long strips of wood laying around the base of the pole.  The pole was shivered all the way through, and will have to be replaced as soon as practicable.

My favorite shot of the morning is the beautiful front-end of the AusTex rig.  I like the way both headlights got stars, and the perspective is really great.  For this shot, I knelt down low on the sidewalk as the truck was stationary.  Don't forget: you can see these images bigger by clicking on them.

Hiring divers?  Looks like maybe one needed a little more training, unfortunately.

Something you don't see every day: The Austin Fire/Rescue Special Operations truck rolled out.

Cleaning this whole mess off of Braker took about 15 minutes after AusTex arrived and pulled out into the street.  Not too shabby, actually.  The driver of the truck

Beware the Student Driver?

They just opened a new State office a few miles from my house.  This place is just for Drivers Licenses, and it's pretty big.  This is to supplement the REALLY big place they have in the Godless City to our immediate South. As we were driving home from church today, I made an amusing/alarming observation about this place.

Scattered around the region of Central Texas are various creeks and drainage ditches.  Where they cross under or pass near a road, there will be a steel roadside barrier, like so:

 These are usually a few dozen feet long, sometimes a hundred or more yards long.

Today, I noticed a damaged guard rail as we were driving along.  Then another one.  Then the drivers license office.  Then we turned the corner and went around a different side of the block where there is this new drivers license office.  And there was another dinged guard rail.

The area in question, thanks to Google Maps.  The red lines are the locations of the rails nearest the DL office.

All three of the guardrails closest to the Drivers License office where they give driving tests, are dented.  My wife and I LOL'd and I advised her to avoid the area during weekdays during normal business hours.

ERMAHGERD! PRLEESE!

Today on the way home from work, I heard a siren.  I looked around and couldn't see the origin.  I heard a BIG horn honk with the siren and was expecting to see an ambulance or fire truck.  Couldn't see it.  Louder and louder, still couldn't see it.  The car behind me moved to the right and finally I barely-saw in my mirrors a policeman on a motorcycle, blindingly coming out of the setting sun (as we drove East).  I made a typical Austinite's get-in-where-you-fit-in merge and the cop went up to the next car.  A couple cars more moved over, and then he got stuck.

This car had a police motorcycle on its 7:00 for maybe half a mile, with lights and sirens going.  There is NO way the driver didn't see the flashing lights.  Finally a couple of neurons connected somewhere and the cop saw the driver looking at him.  The policeman waved VERY big "move over" waves with one arm and the driver thought about it for a moment, finally yielding HALF a lane.  Close enough for a motorcycle though, and the cop was off like a rocket to the next car, who let him go by and on it went.

I pulled up behind this car that had failed to yield for entirely too long and I kid you not - the plate said 9DRRK.  Drrk drrk drrk drrk (with hand banging chest)  To top it off, it was a handicapped plate, and the headliner was drooping in the back window.  For the win.  Turned out to be an old man driver.  Well, at least he did eventually move over, but he cost me a humm-dinger of a woman driver joke.

If You Drive Like This, You STINK!

~or~ Austin Tailgaters: It's Like an Extreme Sport or Something

I have a Bad Drivers category on this blog because they stink at it around here. As we were driving back from San Antonio, my Darling Wife took a turn at the wheel and I was freed up to show you how you know you are in Austin. These sons of guns have no clue or else they don't care that they are taking EVERYBODY's lives in their hands, then holding on with just two fingers and running around in circles shaking their hands. We have lots of fatal collisions on the roads in Central Texas. It's a wonder we don't have more. Chalk it up to Grace and good crumple zone engineering, I guess.



The stripes are four feet long, ten feet apart. You do the math.



All of these were taken while we were going full highway speed. 70MPH speed limit and, in most cases, plus as much as they think they can get away with and not get stopped by the Police.



This lot passed us by. I took pictures of the truck tailgating the car in front, then the car behind the truck tailgating the truck, then the car behind tailgating the car behind. You don't need to see the stop-motion cartoon, so here' s the last in the sequence.









Seriously, they almost all do this on a regular basis



It's not NASCAR, people - drafting on the highways is a bad idea!



Do you have any idea what happens in a crash at 75MPH? Neither do these people. Yes, seriously they follow this close.



This is how they avoid collisions. Speed up behind and then jam the brakes.



At full speed and then some.



Tailgating leads to another type of typical Austin dick move: If they don't leave space, you HAVE to get in where you fit in. Then, because you wanted to be going slower than the person you cut off, you JAM THE BRAKES right after you CUT THEM OFF



I think the Department of Public Safety intends this as a sick joke or something. The driving public sure as [deleted] don't seem to pay it any mind.



The typical following distance at highway speed is from 20 to 40 feet. The safe following distance is several hundred feet.

Tailgaters Drive Slower

General rule: zoom up behind me and tailgate when you could as easily have passed on the right and I'm slowing down no matter what lane we're in.

One of the streets on my way to work is a four lane road at 50MPH that drops to 40 and two lanes, from 2 to 1 lane for each direction.

Today I noticed I was being tailgated SUPER close by a newish white Exploder and slowed down (let off the gas) from 55ish to under 50. We were in the #1 lane but the #2 lane was wiiiide open if they just HAD to pass and speed to the next tailgating party. After a few hundred yards they went around to the #2 lane, passed the person in front of me, went back into the "fast" lane and went to tailgate the next car in front. I went back up to the speed limit.

The car three cars in front of them went to turn left, and there is no left turning lane. Traffic backs up. The #2 lane was clear so I moved over there and passed our friend in the Explorer and the rest of the watingforturner crew. Then I went back into the #1 lane. The Exploder driver had to wait until I went by to have a clear lane on their right, then they went into the #2 lane well behind me.

The street necked down to one lane and 40MPH. I slowed down to 40MPH and here's Explorer buddy tailgating again. Okay, so I let off the gas again and we're at 38MPH and sllooooowing to a stop sign. After I stop, I'm off again like a rocket as usual and Explorer buddy has to wait for a turn to go, so they're way behind me. 1/2 mile later, and there they are tailgating me again. So I let off the gas. Again.

Bear in mind, this is a two lane undivided road with limited visibility, with solid double yellow NO PASSING ZONE stripes for several miles. Passing is not safe to do here, so what did they do? They pulled out into the OPPOSING lane of traffic and tried to hit the gas. And here I am in the Hot Rod. You want to illegal-maneuver pass me? Fine, let's see how bad you want to pass me. 5th to 3rd gear, and I floor it.

As it turns out, they didn't want to pass me any more after about 70MPH headed for a bend in the road. So they fell back behind me again and I braked a little and coasted down to speed. And slower. Until a red light, and they turned a different direction, probably fuming but you know what?

IF they had backed up to +1 safe following distance, I'd have been happy to cruise along at +10% over the speed limit this whole time - but they had to risk my life, my car, their life, and their car, as well as everyone around us by following within a car length of my back bumper.

Tailgaters drive slower - so back up!

Hot Rod Saved My Life!

THREE times in a day, the same way.

Here:



I was getting off the highway at 60MPH and some female in a brown older Chevy Blazer came out from the Fuddruckers parking lot on the frontage road. Slowly. Straight across #3 into the #2 lane. I kept my eye on her truck and sure 'nuff, here she comes doo-de-dum-doo in no big hurry to accelerate, right in front of me in the #1/off-ramp lane. Like I wasn't even there. My comment: "F-ing REALLY?!" As ex-police buddy LB says: "steer-steer-countersteer" and I was in front of her.

There were hundreds of yards to the next car in front and behind, 1/3 a mile to the intersection where we were both going, and this was her way of getting to a red light to turn left. I flipped her off and she waved some meaningless sorry-wave back.

Here, later on the same commute to work:



Again, nobody was behind me, nobody in front for hundreds of yards. It was just me speeding along at 60 miles an hour. Coming up to this underpass intersection my spidey senses went off. I was like "come on spidey senses, you're messing around now." Then from the Southbound frontage road a little red compact sedan comes slowly across all the way into my #1 lane. Sorry for doubting you, spidey-senses! My comment: "D-mnit! AGAIN! AGAIN!" Sweeeerve around.

Here, on the way home that day:



I'm coming like a nightmare southbound on the frontage road in the #2 (right) lane. These jokers in a big new Ford F-250 pull out at a snail's pace into the #2 lane, again like I'm not even there. My Comment: "AGAIN!" Swerve around.

People, if you are going to head out onto the road, [deleted] LOOK AT THE STREET where cars should be coming at you, and then WAIT until the lane is not full of crashing death, or at least merge out in to an unoccupied lane.

Then, on the highway, somebody almost sideswiped my car with theirs when they changed lanes right next to me. I think if I hadn't been seen at the last moment big as life out their side window, they would kept swinging across all the lanes, right into mine. If I had a passenger I would have told them to roll down their window and slap the other driver.

Austin drivers SUCK at driving. The problem seems always to be that you are not as important as they are, so F you if you happen to be where they want to be.

Houston to Austin: Driving Comparison

We just drove back from Houston to Austin. We left the far side of Houston before rush hour and hit serious traffic on the near side. Let me give this to the people of Houston: them drivers don't play. If there's a speed limit, they drive it if possible. They leave something like safe clear following distances between cars. When you put on a turn signal they don't zoom up to cut you off. If they pass you, it's done at a rate of speed that makes sense (no snail racing). If you are near, they will not drive into you. They take off from lights at a reasonably high rate of acceleration. There is no jamming of brakes. There is no cut-you-off-and-slow-down action. The people of Houston have places to be and don't dick around getting there. It was almost like driving with a million of myself on the road.

Then we got closer to home and the jackassery started. We were cut off within a car length so the car that cut us off could go zero miles per hour faster because the car in front of us was going the same speed as the car in the "passing" lane. We were very nearly passed on the right on the SHOULDER by someone in a hurry to turn off the highway. These incidents were within two miles of each other, just past the "AUSTIN 30 MILES" sign. I started to mutter badwords under my breath and my Darling Wife wondered out loud what was going on . . . then we realized that these were Austin drivers.

Oh well, it was nice for the dayandahalf we were in Houston, anyway.

New Car for my Birthday!

. . . the hard way.

Almost. We were cruising along at 50MPH on a three lane-median-three lane surface street headed home from Church. We were in the #2 lane, heading North. A green-light was up ahead at the intersection with a four lane street crossing our six lane street. The people on our right (pointed West) sucked at driving. There were actually TWO cars involved in this dumbassery today. The one was following the other, and they wanted to be going North for two blocks, then make a Left turn (West again). This means they needed to pop onto our road.

The law and good sense and courtesy all say: turn into the right lane from the right lane. This means their #2 lane would merge into our #3 lane when traffic was clear. So what did they do? They went from their #2 right lane to our #2 MIDDLE lane when traffic was coming at 50MPH! Fortunately, I saw this coming with enough time to spare that I was already saying badwords under my breath at them by the time my Darling Wife realized what was going on. Later, she told me she saw that they were totally oblivious to our presence until we swerved around them.

Have you ever seen bats emerging by their ten-thousands from a cave and a person is standing in the mouth of the cave? The bats flow around the person like water, and close ranks again on the other side of the person. That's what I did to this car. The first car had already turned into our lane and the second car was in the middle of the intersection (obviously?) in the middle of a low-speed turning maneuver. I had time to make sure the #1 lane was clear and swerved as we entered the intersection, to go around these jerks, then back around into our #2 lane as we passed them. The first car had, by this time, moved to the #3 lane. Why they did not just go there in the first place is beyond me.

The first car, around which my instincts told me I would have to swerve was, amusingly, a new Nissan Juke.

Pilot trainees have to put in so many hours behind a stick with an instructor present, before they go off on their own into the wild blue yonder. Somebody explain to me why, if we are going to require mandatory licensing of drivers to use the public roadways, we don't also have mandatory TRAINING of drivers?

Sunday Drivers

I saw enough moving violations and violations of good driving protocols to fill up a whole shift and go into overtime writing reports . . . and that was just on the way to Church and back. Who knows, maybe people are just being cautious because of the wet weather? You know, with high humidity & some clouds, you could go skidding off the road with no notice at all! Rain, of course, has no effect on braking ability so just drive normally.

Maybe the people are still sleepy, having just woken up from their naps in the pews?

Drug Smuggling Pro Tip: Use Your Turn Signals

If you:

• Have no license to drive on public roadways
• Have no insurance on your car and
• Have $10,000,000 worth of coke in the trunk

You might want to avoid making illegal lane changes, mmkay?

Something Else That Never Happens To Me

On my commute to work this morning I looked down a long hill and saw lots of flashing lights at the bottom. From about a mile or two away I knew something bad was happening and I wanted to avoid it if possible. I saw as I drew nearer that the circus was in the left part of the road so I merged to the right lane. I thought that the other drivers on the left lane would do likewise, as we all came up and saw that there was a traffic stop underway in the left-turning lane coming up to a light.

There was a light, 5+ car lengths, a truck with an unhappy driver, a car length, a Police cruiser, a few more lengths, and another cruiser. BOTH Police cars had their brightasheck LED lightbars going full tilt.

As I pulled up to the scene, another pickup pulled in behind the second cruiser. I thought "how nice, somebody to help" thinking they were coming to rescue their soon-to-be-arrested buddy's truck. Then another car pulled in behind the pickup. And another. And another. By the time I went on around the bend, EIGHT cars were in a line behind this traffic stop in-progress, and would have to wait for someone to shoo them away or else a clue to pop into their heads before they would go around and make their left turns.

Remember there was a MILE to react to this. For more than a full minute these sheeple were blissfully ignoring the mess they were going to get themselves into. I wouldn't be surprised if their Condition White minds never even saw the police lights up ahead.

Contact and cover: Sometimes the Cover guy gets a good laugh at the fools around him, I suppose.

Poetic Justice Served up Hot

Two jerks canceled each other out this morning and I laughed at them both as I drove by.

On a 2-lane road with a shopping center off the right side . . .

I was in the #1 lane with a little SUV in front of me. In front of them in the #2 lane was a bobtail cargo truck. Behind the cargo truck, slightly behind me was a sedan. There was no traffic to speak of behind these four vehicles.

The SUV puts on their blinker and is obviously going to cut over in front of the sedan within a couple of car lengths. They would be cutting off the sedan but not too bad. The sedan speeds up and shuts the door on the SUV, and is (bygod!) not cut off. The SUV then has to decelerate and merge into the right lane behind the sedan. They immediately slow down and turn off into the shopping center.

The jerk preventing a merge in front of them by accelerating, prevented the jerk from merging in front of them and hitting the brakes to turn off into a parking lot when they could have waited a couple seconds and not cut off the other car. I laughed pretty good at the way that played out as I drove by.

At least nobody had a fish on their car.

Thou Shalt Not

. . . take the name of the LORD thy God in vain

If you pull out in front of traffic and drive slow, especially if you could wait 5 seconds and have a clear break in traffic, especially if you are going to take the next turning off the road, you are an [deleted].

If you have a little fishy on the back of your car and drive out from the church parking lot, you are proclaiming yourself to be one of Jesus' people. You are voluntarily identifying yourself with the Lord. You ought to be on Best Behavior.

If you pull out from the church parking lot in your car with the little fishy on it, and cut off traffic and drive like an [deleted], then you are putting negative connotations on my Jesus with your asshattery. This is a violation of the third Commandment.   Don't.  Some of us don't have little fishies on our cars because we don't want to publicly make our Lord look bad. If you're going to be a jerk, peel the fish off your trunk.

Yeah? So you don't like it, so what? Why should I do what YOU say, VFD?

. . . for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

It is not about what I like or what I say. I am not the one declaring guilt, in the final analysis - nor the one handing out judgements and rewards.

No, You Don't Own The Road

Look I know it is unpleasant for you to allow other people to pass you on the highway. I know it bothers you on a deep subconscious level. But you are going well under the speed limit and everyone is passing you for a reason.

So when I am behind you in the slow lane and I move over one lane to your left to pass you, I understand why you accelerate. But you need to understand that when you are in my blind spot and accelerate to match my speed, yes you will have to jam your brakes and honk when I go to merge in front of you. If you weren't an ass, you wouldn't have been where I was about to be, so feel free to blame yourself.

Also, when you are going slow in the middle lane, under the speed limit, and I come up from way behind you in the lane to your right, if you close the gap between your car and the car in front, just barely quickly enough so I can't pass you on the right and go in front of you, I understand. I feel your pain. I hope you don't suffer too much mental anguish as I manipulate you into letting me by. I fall back just long enough that you let the gap open again, then downshift and fly by you before you can close it again.

You jerk.

Surprisingly, my Darling Wife says El Paso drivers are even worse. I told her those are drivers from Mexico and an entirely different class, but she said not just the ones from Mexico. Maybe they have to drive that way in self-defense in all the border towns? Driver's education classes: should be mandatory instruction in high school, everywhere.

Did You Miss Me?

I was thinking about writing, really . . . but uh . . .

Well here's what I was going to write, but forgot (repeatedly) to type out:

We were driving to church and some cat behind us in a green Civic saw that he would be stuck at a light behind four other cars, so he cut through the parking lot at a shopping strip. This, in Texas, is known as "Cutting Through Private Property to Avoid an Intersection" and the fine is hundreds of dollars. We got through that light and pulled up at the next intersection (also red) . . . beside the joker who had just cut through the parking lot and gas station. Then, to my amusement, they were SLOW off the line at the light. Reaction time: double what the guy with a gray beard in a minvan had. Time saved by committing a misdimeanor: zero!

How would you know what the fine is, VFD?

Because this is an offense near and dear to my family. When we first came back to Texas, my Darling Wife wanted to cut through a gas station to go around a red light. I told her it was not only lame but against the law, and when the officer caught her, he wouldn't want to hear her story. Many years later, I knew a place a half-mile south of where I worked had a low price on gas. I needed fuel in the Hot Rod, so I went down that way even though I lived up North. When I got to the gas station, as I pulled up to the pumps I looked at the big sign and saw the price was higher than I wanted to pay. Without stopping (I did slow considerably for caution's sake) at the pumps I went through the station parking lot and out the other side, onto the street. I went to make a U-turn on a side street and caught the lights from a COP who, unsurprisingly, did not want to hear my story. Fun factoids: The intersection I was supposed to be avoiding was one where I could have made a U-turn and there was nobody stopped in the left lane. It had nobody in the right lane, from which I could have turned down the side street instead of cutting through the gas station. The maneuver I was supposed to be pulling was both out of my way AND involved a higher number of turns than just turning around. When I got to court, the judge said "VFD, thank you for coming. Your case is dismissed." and the COP was right there in the courthouse.

Anyway, that intersection was across the street from the one where greencivicboy pulled his genuine execution of the offending maneuver. *sigh* small world, ain't it?

Austin Drivers STINK!

I was running way late for work this morning, and as I got on the highway I found traffic was very light. I thought this would make for a pleasant commute, but I was mistaken. It turns out, when traffic in Austin gets lighter the drivers are stupider. Those driving in rush hour in Austin will be surprised that such a thing is possible, but trust me it is so.

Refer to the following image (click to see full-sized)



I was on the northbound frontage of I-35 in lane 1 at the light. A white CARTS car was in front of me. We turned left on the bridge across the highway and . . they . . were . . going . . too . . slow . . because they were going to turn left to go down the South frontage of I-35. As they merged into the left turning lane, and I continued straight, I accelerated as they got out of my way. Then some JACKASS in a full-sized green GM pickup cut me off, and then they cut off the white CARTSmobile. There was about 3 or 4 carlengths of clear lane for the CARTS car to slow to a stop, and into this space the green truck cut both of us off. At maybe 25MPH, with nowhere near enough room to stop. Then they decided this was not where they wanted to turn, and boltered back into the #1 lane . . . to where my car was. My instincts told me there was nobody in the #2 lane where the truck had just been a moment before, so I swerved over into the #2 lane and nailed the gas. I proceeded through the intersection and cut the green truck off because [deleted] that guy.

They turned left at the next intersection.

Note the hands in the following image. These point out the different places where the truck could have made a safe "New Jersey left turn" instead of risking my car and my life, as well as the cars and lives of their fellow drivers.



Ass. Hole.


********

Next up on the hit parade:



Then I found another TWO of them at the other end of Sam Bass Road. The road turns North, and it is the North/South route intersecting 1431 which runs East-West in the above photo. The left turning cars have a green/yellow arrow and green/yellow/red round lights to guide them through the intersection. I pulled up behind a half-dozen cars as the light turned green-left-arrow. Nobody went forward. Then it sounded like New Jersey as everyone who did not have their heads up their [deleted]s started honking. Not me, it wouldn't have done any good. They were all honking at the female driver in a silver 3rd gen. Mitsubishi Eclipse who failed to drive when her light turned green. As the light turned to yellow-left-arrow she finally went through the intersection. Everyone was going through the light at this point, arrows and red lights be damned . . . except for this one female driving a white Honda Odyssey (with the Honda badge pulled off the backhatch). She saw the green arrow turn yellow and the green circle come on

. . . and stopped DEAD in the #2 and #1 lanes of Eastbound traffic on 1431. In the lanes. This was my turn to honk. Finally TWO cars which had been stopped (because they did not have the right of way as long as Minivandriver's yellow arrow was lit) came South across 1431 and she drove off. I laid down a strip of rubber all the way around her into the #2 lane.

WTFPPL.

Then to make up for letting me survive this morning, TWICE on the same stretch of road on the way home, a car (two different cars) tried to zoom up in the right lane and cut me off to pass. In heavy traffic. I accelerated to prevent them cutting me off. If I can mostly-safely avoid it, I don't let people cut me off. Yes, it means a shorter-than-safe following distance between me and the car in front of me. That, I can control. I can brake when I please or ditch onto the median if the car in front goes nuts and jams the brakes. What I can't control is some jerk who does not know how long the back of his sporty little black Audi or fancy new F-250 is, and they pull a reverse PIT on me at 45MPH in traffic with unpredictably-disastrous results.

Someone please get our Elected Heroes in Austin to put drivers education back on the mandatory high school curriculum in Texas!

You See Officer, What Had Happened Was That, Uh . . .

Maybe I need to be a policeman. It could potentially save me having to explain unlikely things like this here.

On the way home from work today as I approached a 4-way stop sign intersection, sumdood coming from the street on the right straight-up rolled the stop and took off to his right (the same direction I was going). I don't mean "I thought I had stopped, officer" I mean "how fast can I take this turn on 4 wheels." Like the stop sign wasn't even there.

I was a hundred yards or so from my own stop and slowing to stop (for three full seconds, honestly!) and saw this shenanigan pulled right in front of me. For a couple of seconds I was fantasizing about hitting my blue lights and blasting through the intersection to write a righteous moving violation citation . . .

. . . and almost forgot to stop for my real-life-non-COP-self's own stop sign! DOH!

If You Drive Like This, You STINK!

There I was, minding my own business in the far-right lane at 50MPH (the speed limit) when a car pulled out of a driveway to my right and started traveling in the same direction and in the same lane, as mine. And the driver did NOT stand on the gas. This forced me to choose between ramming the back of their car with a delta-V of about 20MPH, or change lanes to pass. Just another day in paradise, right? How about just another day in ThesePeopleStinkAtDrivingland Austin:

There was no traffic in the left lane. They could have pulled out across the right lane and gone as slow as they liked in the left lane, and not risked anyone's life.

Traffic in front of my car was thin. A huge gap existed, but they chose to wait until half of it was gone. Acceleration-time-in-traffic wasted for them meant danger for us all.

If they had jumped on the gas, there would have been no problem at all. They didn't.

The icing on the cake: there was NOBODY BEHIND ME! If they had waited just a few more seconds, this goes from a dangerous example of one of my pet peeves, to perfect driving behavior.

********

Yes, it was a female driver.

If You Drive Like This, You STINK!

I had the misfortune to be behind a nasty sort of driver in traffic today. A male with a female passenger in a little pickup truck. This guy stopped at a light in front of me and he was obviously engaging the passengeress in conversation. Then the light turned green and the conversation continued.

The problem? He was spending at least 1/2 the time looking toward his passenger instead of looking at the road, including when he was driving.

WTH are you looking at, and why isnt' it the road? Do you really need to see your sub. nodding agreement so badly you'll risk a crash? Are you a control freak or something? Or do you have some insecurity that forces you to keep checking she's still listening? Do you have OCD and you have to keep checking to make sure she's still there? Dude, she's not going anywhere so how about you just stop turning your head already.

At least I was safely behind him. I shudder to think what might happen to the people in front of and beside this joker.