Thursday, February 23, 2006

ROAD HOGS

Here's one of my pet peeves though, truth to tell, I've got a lot of them. I'm no longer the pedal to the metal kind of driver I used to be. Sometimes I get back the urge and take advantage of the fact that the freeway I use to get to and from work generally travels (in the fast lane) at speed in excess of 80 mph. Most of the time, however, I like to hang back in the slow lane and just accept the fact I'll be a minute or two later than if I jammed for the ten miles I need to get to my offramp.

So, here's what really pisses me off. Why is it folks who have been content to drive along behind a truck for the last mile or so, suddenly decide to pull out in front of me, even though there is no one behind me and they have to know they're going to cause me to slow down?

I don't expect them to put together the fact that we're going uphill and I don't exactly have a muscle car, so they're definitely impacting my world. But there's nobody behind me! Why the fuck can't they wait that extra moment for me to pass? This is especially egregious when I'm using my cruise control to conserve a little gas and make my drive even less stressful, because I then have to change lanes (if there's nobody coming up on us), step on the brake, or hold the coast button down. Either way, it's an unnecessary pain in the ass caused by a rude, thoughtless asshole who obviously was the only freaking person on the road.

I find a lot of people are incredibly thoughtless and inconsiderate; frequently rude, selfish, and amazingly unconcerned for the people they share the road (or the planet, for that matter) with. There are no laws against it, of course, though it seems all of our social and religious philosophies decry this kind of behavior. Yet the world is filled with pigs and dickheads. I don't get it. Maybe I never will. I also don't like it and I will never, ever get over it.

I'm going to try and figure out how to better understand why it's so and how to counter it. I hope there are folks out there who can contribute to this effort. Regardless, I want to fight against, and marginalize this kind of behavior, especially when it comes from people who think they are thoughtful and respectful. I'm also going to point it out in every way I see it, whether it's some jerk throwing trash out of his car, or a shopper leaving their cart in the middle of a parking space. More to come.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

The open-road mutha truckers are having a field day. I'm doing 80 in the fast lane, as I should be, the 18-wheelers are in a convoy in the slow lane, then, when you get close. the tailing mutha trucker pulls out into my lane to pass the truckers in front of him at a relative speed of 3-5 mph over the 55-60 he was doing. Talk about ruining your cruise control buzz...those mutha truckers