Bad "Drivers"

You know how when you first got your drivers license and your parents were overly cautious about letting you drive? Yeah, me neither. My parents didn't care.

Just kidding. I didn't have my license until I was well into my 17th year.

I rarely got to go out and drive when I had my learners permit, but that is all starting to make sense. And here's why...

I have a wife. I care about her. I also care about my car. You see, we share a car. My wife is not a bad driver. She's pretty good actually. Probably a better driver than me in fact (Just kidding. Everyone knows that women are horrible drivers. Haha. Just kidding again. The insurance industry has proven they aren't). No, it's really not my wife that worries me. It's everyone else. I think that when people are driving, they view all the other cars, not as machine's being driven by people with families and jobs and lives and other things that they care about, but rather as evil automatons. Thus, each time we are cut off and each time someone speeds around us or "drives too slow" in front of us, they aren't doing that near us, they're doing it to us. Isn't that how you feel while you drive?

I'm going to be straight with all of you. That's how I feel when I drive. Especially when I'm late. 

If that's the case then we have a HUGE problem. I mean, if everyone out there is driving offensively instead of defensively how are there any drivers still alive? How has the road not turned into a gas powered game of Bumper Cars?

Here's what happened to me that made me decide I had to write about this...

There were very few cars on the road. My driveway comes right off of a main road here in Phoenix. It was coming up on the left side of the road (which means I have to cross traffic to get into the driveway) in about a half mile. I was in the right lane and there was a very small set of headlamps in my mirror in the left lane. I seriously had an 8th of a mile between the two of us so I get over. At this point, the car starts speeding towards me. There are literally NO OTHER CARS on the road. But this guy flies up to me and get's right behind my car, seemingly trying to get me to go faster or at least let me know that I'm in his way. Why? Because he wants to go faster? Absolutely not. If he wanted to go faster he could easily have gone around me. He got right on my tail because he wanted to hurt me. He was driving offensively. Why!?!?!?!?! I know that's a lot of punctuation but I don't get it. What is it about driving that makes us all turn into The Hulk?

About 2 hours later I was coming from the other direction to turn into my driveway. There was another chronic tailgater behind me at this point. Again, there were no other cars on the road. I put my turn signal on very early to give this gentleman behind me an opportunity to go around me. But this tough guy in a Prius behind me decides to sit right on my tail. Unfortunately for him, when I got to my driveway I literally had to stop in the road because of another ignoramus. Let's call him Pedestrian Mc-I-don't-care-about-anyone-but-myself. I swear! This guy walked slower than anyone I've ever known in my life. And he went from Snail-pace to Sloth-with-no-legs-pace. Why? Because I was interrupting his natural rhythm, or because he has right-of-way, or because he was suddenly stricken with...  I don't know. Is there some disease that suddenly makes people move impossibly slow (If there is, I apologize for my insensitivity)? Well... to continue, Vin Diesel, still 3.5 mm from my rear bumper then decides it's appropriate to honk to let me know that I should just skip going home today, or run the pedestrian over so that he can save those 5 seconds. But again, I feel I must stress that if it was an issue to slow down, he had the choice of going around me. So why did he not? Someone please tell me! Maybe he can't turn the steering wheel to the left. I have no idea. All I know is, when people are driving, they become the worst version of themselves.

Written by individual contributor
Lane Fries (a.k.a. Lane Freeze)