Life's little ironies.
I think we all see them from time to time. I just thought I'd share something from this morning.
So I drive to work through a number of little back roads, instead of taking the OMGWTFBURNINGVEHICLE... major roads. Typically I leave the house around 6AM, which I did manage to do today, but I guess everyone else did because there was an alarming increase in morning traffic. Oh, that's why... two big-rigs decided to take this little 40MPH narrow road all the way to Rockville today. 
People around me are showing their agitation in the way they're driving. I merge into the left lane, where there was plenty of room (I could see the guy's headlights in my rear-view), and he immediately speeds up, slams on the brakes (since that didn't really stop me, as I was already half-way over anyway), and begins making sweet hand-love to his horn. As if his vehicle's shouts of injustice would be heard by it's fellow vehicles, and they'd all pounce on me to remove me from the herd. The right lane was ending, so I didn't have much of a choice.
Once we get back to a two lane situation again, I start noticing a car a good ways back, weaving. I figure it's just a typical morning asshole, who thinks the other people on the road are just put on this Earth to get in his way. Yup, pretty sure I'm right, there he goes flooring it in the emergency lane trying to pass people. Oh, good for them... he couldn't get over.
Well, he still makes several attempts over the next several miles, and eventually gets up beside me as I'm getting into the final stretch before arriving at Hel... my office. And, as I expected after I assessed the traffic ahead of me, he decides his vehicle forgoes the basic laws of physics, as he tries to have his car occupy the same space as mine.
After I slam on brakes to keep him from hitting me (as I'm sure he looked over, and saw me, but wants me to think he didn't as he swerved over), I look at the back of his car. There's a single bumper sticker there, right in the middle, impossible to miss.
IronClad Online: PurEvil
Obviously, you need to find this bumper sticker:
Steam ID: http://steamcommunity.com/id/NSMike
XBL: NSMike
PSN: NSMike
Wii Friend Code: 7763 1519 2475 2278
Well I don't know if you have it but in Cali what I would do is call 1-800-cut-smog on assholes and this would force them to resmog their cars. Or just get the plates and call the police, they MIGHT do something about it...
I find most people that have like peace stickers and crap like that on their car are the worst drivers and or biggest assholes.
Xfire: Pharacon
I concur with that observation.
Shelter: a post-nuclear RPG.
Motion carried.
The Tappet brothers would also add anyone in a Volkswagen Jetta, which frequently falls into the aforementioned category.
Well...yeah. What else are they doing on the road when I need to be somewhere in a hurry?
XBLive: Ruckus
I want a bumper sticker that says "Jesus may love you, but you're still a sh1tty driver".
There is only an up or down--up to a man's age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order--or down to the ant heap totalitarianism,... those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.
I want a giant bumper sticker that's a magic eye so that when people are behind me on the highway and they stare at it long enough all of a sudden it looks like a whale is jumping at their car and they get scared and swerve off the road!
I usually just shriek like a banshee and start ripping off all of my clothes, but I was never very good at math.
Best one I ever saw? "Bin Ladin's a Dodgers fan."
"Men like sex, thus boobies! Oogaba!" - dejanzie
"If ads put your sanity to the test
come on down to Rat Boy's nest!
light up a stogie, and soon you'll see
how rock can be commercial-free!
'I'd hit it!'" - HP Lovesauce
Nah... that prize goes to "Voldemort voted for Bush."
I accrue pens like Hefner accrues bimbos. -- duckideva
I agree on the balls. Not a fan of the balls. -- wordsmythe asserting himself in OOC Theater
I would get one that says "f*ck off, Your wife's in the trunk".
XBox Live: MaxShrek .... Steam ID: MaxShrek
Blogging Pencil ...
Maine would like to add people from Massachusetts as well.
Stengah's Steam ID
ICO: Stengah
Pennsylvania seconds the addition of Massachusetts.
Steam ID: http://steamcommunity.com/id/NSMike
XBL: NSMike
PSN: NSMike
Wii Friend Code: 7763 1519 2475 2278
Oregon votes to add Californian drivers. 90% of whom seem to have moved up here to get away from each other's poor driving skills, only to reunite across the state line to make our lives more miserable than theirs are.
Xbox Live: dhelor (though I don't actually HAVE an Xbox)
"Dhelor + intarwebs = Great ideas." - wordsmythe
"Do I what I do: hate everyone." - Quintin_Stone
This makes me sad, I would've voted for Voldemort before I knew that.
Ikariam.org Iota Server Info Sheet
This may help explain it (saw it on Digg yesterday):
http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/03/attitude-behaviour-gap-why-we-say-one.p...
xbox LIVE: NatsuMatto
I think it's relative. Ohio drivers are horrible on the highway. So horrible that West Virginia had to start pulling people over for driving slow in the fast lane.
Michigan drivers, on the other hand, are insane on surface streets. Detroit is a drag race from stop light to stop light, and "Michigan lefts" just drive me nuts.
Chicago is interesting. In one drive through Chicago, without ever leaving an interstate highway, my car was "rubbed" three times by different drivers who weren't happy that I wasn't cutting someone off fast enough for their tastes.
Oh holy crap. I drive to work on a 4-lane in PA that borders Ohio. MOVE THE F*CK OVER, OHIO DRIVERS. Fast lane is for PASSING.
Steam ID: http://steamcommunity.com/id/NSMike
XBL: NSMike
PSN: NSMike
Wii Friend Code: 7763 1519 2475 2278
So who do Massholes think are bad drivers?
Stengah's Steam ID
ICO: Stengah
I need to add my 2 cents as well about Indiana drivers. Oh don't worry, they won't be the ones cutting you off and speeding like their house in on fire. They are the ones who drive 50 in a 55 zone. They sit side by side on the interstate while both going 61 in the 65 zones without letting any other traffic by. There is something to be said for safe driving, but there is something altogether else that needs to be said about GETTING THE *bleep* OUT OF THE WAY!
XBL: GWJ Stryker
Universal truths, all.
dejanzie- "Let's say Stephen Hawking is after your new pc, and your porn is backed up- would you find it wrong to shoot him?"
LiquidMantis- "Hell no. I'd push over his wheelchair then teabag him while shouting, 'Here's your universe in a nutshell!'"
That's the truth. I lived in Indiana for a couple of years, and it was the first time I ever saw someone come to a complete stop at a green light. This wonderful driver was in front of me, so I politely honked. She waited a bit, and after the light had turned red she decided it was time to proceed through the intersection. I guess it balances out in a weird kind of way.
The drivers there just tended to drive slowly and poorly. I saw cars drift into curbs with stunning regularity.
XBox Live: infinitelyloopy
Zune Profile
I've heard of color blindness, but is there any disorder that switches what color you see? Maybe she saw greens as reds (and vice versa).
This still doesn't excuse why she was driving at all if she has a condition of that sort, of course.
Xbox Live: dhelor (though I don't actually HAVE an Xbox)
"Dhelor + intarwebs = Great ideas." - wordsmythe
"Do I what I do: hate everyone." - Quintin_Stone
I spend probably 90% of my driving time on I-75.
The number of drivers from Michigan and Ohio who cruise in the left lane at five under the speed limit is mind boggling.
It's always best when they do it up big hills with some big rigs side by side in the other two or three lanes.
It's moments like those that prevent my mind from allowing me to apply for a concealed carry permit.
XBLive: Thin J
PSN: Thin_J
I don't imagine master craftsmen leaping away from completed projects and shouting "Done, motherf*ckers! - 1Dgaf
Just make sure it's written in English and Spanish.
IronClad Online: PurEvil
Coonasses inhabit a separate plane of existence wherein nothing much about your driving matters as long as you're approaching triple digit speeds. I used to have to drive across Louisiana on occasion and it's the only place where I've ever maintained 110 as a pure defense mechanism as I crossed a particularly long bridge over the swamps. It is also the only place I've ever been pulled over... not for speeding but for going too slow.
Rock Band Name Generator!... too funny to merely be coincidence.
"Truly, this mishap has set back the swamp sciences several years." - H.P. Lovesauce, lamenting a tragedy.
Don't know about Mich. or Indiana drivers, but we hate the Californians here in Idaho too. I think most of this is about the unwritten rules of the road in whatever region you happen to be in. From which lanes are used for which purpose to the subtleties of meaning in red lights, every region seems to have its own ideas of what is acceptable. I was thinking about this the other day driving through a residential part of town. In a small town like this it's perfectly acceptable, even expected to drive over the median on these roads because a) there's almost never anyone else coming and b) Johnny two shoes can come chasing after his ball from behind a parked car at any time, and you have more warning on both sides towards the center. I'd never imagine doing this in a city where there's more traffic and kids are more tightly controlled, however. For drivers, I think it's a case of in Rome, do as the Romans do. Habits are hard to break though.
And not really an irony, but yesterday I was behind a trailer with a portapotty that had a roll of tissue paper flapping out the back.
Occasionally
I get the urge to write out
a stupid haiku
That also doesn't explain how, or why she thinks the light at the bottom means stop, and the one on top means go. I mean what is that, some sort of traffic light Dyslexia? Is Indiana using some kind of traffic lights, that no one else does??
LiquidMantis wrote:
Hate California drivers, when I lived in Eugene I had to deal with way too many of them. Apparently for the first five seconds of a red light, it's still okay to go.
The only way I keep myself from being angry is I create backstories about the person or car. I pretend they're Jack Bauer and they're off to save America. As they violently cut me off I say out loud, "Thank you for risking your life to save America! Go get those terrorists!"
It's people who actually drive really slow who piss me off the most. I feel they put me in way greater danger then any hero who is trying to get the secret weapon to the leader of the Freemasons in order to stop the zombie uprising.
Certis wrote:
XBL: elliottxW
My sister watched a lady bump her car, then gun it and tear up the entire passenger's side in order to park, then ignore my sister and walk away. When she went to contact the police, a cop showed up looking for an SUV that fled the scene of an accident. It was the same SUV. They found the lady in the restaurant my sister had left. Turns out, the lady had been to her psychiatrist before this and he over medicated her on accident.
I'm an Uncle!!! -8/20/07
I buy even though I have 2 of them. I likey the Snakey. - Scrub, I'll leave it to you to guess what this is about
ICO: General Fancypants
Steam: Grenn[GWJ]
WoW: Goquelyrslf
What's with the Cali haterade? Aggressive driving is a requirement here. You don't signal lane changes because it gives the other guy a chance to block you. You just nudge into the lane and he has to let you in. It's not terribly risky because you're never traveling over 10 MPH on the highway. Turning on red is completely acceptable, unless the light has one of those cursed traffic cameras.
Hands down, the worst drivers are from Boston. They swerve from lane to lane. They think the gas and break pedals can only exist in two states: jammed down through the floor or not touched. And they yell at you with their funny little accents.
The only time I've ever gotten car sick was a cab ride in Boston. The constant speeding up and jamming on the breaks was worse than an amusement park ride gone bad.