You people stink.
Well, not you so much. And you, you’re all right. But the rest? The woman with the cellphone, the cigarette and the dog? The dude with his hand hanging out the window, too comfortable to manage a damn blinker? You stink. If my editors would let me get away with it, I’d use stronger language. And hand grenades.
When the rain gave way to sun and heat last week, the bad drivers came out in force; an army of the lazy, the inconsiderate and the just plain stupid. Driving on local roads was like playing Asteroids, only with morons and massive hunks of metal instead of computer-generated space rocks. I mean … just wow. How did you people (not you, ma’am; you’re terrific) get licenses to begin with?
It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? When some creeping dolt makes a wide left turn from the right lane, you think there is just no way. There’s no way this person spent weeks in a driver’s education course and was approved for the road.
When a hair-twirling teen comes screaming out in front of you from a side street, and then proceeds to crawl at 5 mph while sending an elaborate text message (smiley faces and an LOL) you seriously believe they must have handed over a wad of cash and a bottle of Jim Beam to get that state-issued piece of plastic.
When a slack-jawed fool puts on his right blinker and then makes a loping left turn — while lighting a smoke and fiddling with the radio — you think the only thing this person should be driving is a golf ball. And then only while wearing a helmet and safety goggles.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: 25 percent of bad drivers on the road are just plain inept. The other 75 percent are inconsiderate, selfish wretches. They know how to drive; they just don’t give a damn about you or the other drivers on the road.
I’m riding up Main Street on my motorcycle. It’s sunny, it’s Friday and 10,000 people have apparently been released from Dumbass Prison and onto the local streets. With each passing block, I calculate my odds of making it home alive. I’m at about 37 percent, down from 99 percent since riding out of the woods.
I’m cruising along when a woman in a minivan comes screeching out of a side street and into traffic. Before I get a chance to finger the hand brake, her bumper is gleaming a few inches ahead of my front tire. No blinker, no looking both ways, just a self-absorbed desire to get where she’s going a little bit faster.
She’s got the cellphone jammed to the side of her head. There’s a little dog, presumably terrified for its life, bouncing up and down in her lap. She’s looking everywhere but at the street in front of her. She gawks at a girl on the sidewalk (oooh, I like that top. I wonder if she got it at the Walmart.) She slows to 3 mph and peers into the lot at 7-Eleven (do I want an ice cream sandwich and a Yoohoo? It’ll go straight to my hips, but I kinda do …) She takes a long look at her phone to make sure she got the latest ROFL in proper order.
Before she was off Main Street, she cut off three other drivers, nearly mowed down two pedestrians in a crosswalk (in front of the hospital, no less) and rolled halfway into an intersection before remembering that red means stop.
Driving behind her, absolutely floored that a driver that bad could hold a valid license (maybe) I try to be charitable. You know, she’s probably a dear when she’s not behind the wheel. Reads to the elderly. Builds orphanages on weekends. Takes in stray dogs and restores them to health.
But ya know what? I kind of doubt it. That level of indifference on the road is probably indicative of a larger callousness. This is the kind of person who will park in a handicapped zone without compunction; who will stand at a corner store checkout for 10 minutes while scratching off lottery tickets; who will bend beneath a restaurant sneeze shield just so she can let one fly on the salad bar.
And they’re everywhere, like a swarm of bad-driving bees. If you glance at your rearview mirror right now, there’s probably one of them 6 inches off your back bumper. She’s talking on her phone and putting on lipstick and after she crashes into the back of you, she’ll probably sue.
Police privately deem a variety of fender-benders the result of cranial/rectal inversion on the part of the driver. I’m sure if you give it some thought, you’ll deduce what that means. It’s actually a pretty sweet image.
Bad drivers are a plague, but the larger scourge is the narcissism that propels them. The problem with the self-centered, of course, is that they never recognize themselves when criticism is in play. If you happen to be reading this on your iPad while driving down Park Street and making a sudden lane change, guess what. You, my friend, are one of those people.
And the rest of us think you stink.
Mark LaFlamme is a Sun Journal staff writer. Stinkers (and you, too, ma’am) can email him at mlaflamme@sunjournal.com.
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