Are You as Stupid as You Drive?

[2naSalit]

12. You're both exactly right.

I drove for a living for over twenty years, fifteen in semis and a couple gigs as driving instructor for large vehicles. I, like Tobin, has seen everything out there in those driver's seats. Before cell phones, it was people having sex in odd positions while flying down the highway or drugs,reading the newspaper and putting on makeup in their rear-view mirror.

I have a few little descriptive quotes about these distracted or unskilled drivers;

"They only use their rear-view mirrors once every other Sunday whether they need to or not."

"pay attention, you'll live longer."

But then there are those who should have found someone to drive them, these include many elderly, anyone who isn't willing to obey the rules and probably 70% of the tourists on the road... particularly those from other countries. I live in a rural place but also very close to a major National Park so every town within 100 miles is essentially, anymore, a tourist town. Since it's a huge place, everyone wants to drive through at their leisure, which ends up being the much of the congestion problem. But the recent, exponential increase in tourists coming to this place has priced nearly all the locals out of housing and jobs as seasonal employers seek out foreign student workers for the service industry jobs which means the locals also have fewer job opportunities. But I digress, this was about driving...

So there is a major increase in foreign tourists meant more tourists, especially from a couple countries and one of them came in far larger numbers than the other so they started showing up on buses, I have since lost much of my respect for bus drivers for the way they drive. But this large population from a certain country discovered that they could rent cars so they started driving them all over the country, many without a license or training of any kind, but the next year, they started renting Cruise America RVs... virtual ocean going vessels on wheels. And since they really, truly don't know anything about driving other than ignition, go, stop and turn, they don't know what road signs, any of them, mean thus, they are a danger to everyone. I see more of them each year and it's alarming.

Yeah, I look to see who's driving. The ones who ride my bumper and eventually pass me in a less than safe fashion get a motion from me, because THEY are looking at me as if my existence is crime... I reach over to my left shoulder with my right hand and pretend to flick something distasteful off it in their direction. I usually slow down for anyone to pass me if it's safe, but I will normally yield since I'm not normally in any hurry to get anywhere. Thankfully I also live in a place where most of us go about life understanding that if something didn't get done today, it's probably okay to get to it tomorrow. I drive the speed limit and if I don't it's somewhere within 10mph lower. If that's too much for people on the Interstate, which I loathe, they can pass me, if I'm already passing someone, they just have to wait until I'm done.