I hate tailgaters. Where I live, it’s the norm to drive on the back bumper of the person in front of you. Usually the culprit is a souped up Honda with a driver holding a Taco Bell Burrito or a posh luxury go getter with its occupant engaged in a cell phone conversation. Occasionally, there is a pickup truck held together by twine, or massive SUV capable of running over me without even scratching my car with its muffler. Because I’ve been rear ended twice, I’m very nervous around tailgaters. When possible, I intentionally position myself around the more conservative drivers in the hopes I can avoid an accident.
Driving down a busy highway, I stayed true to my strategy and pulled in between two minivans. Within moments, I felt a looming shadow over my shoulder. A quick glance to my rearview mirror revealed a driver practically kissing my trunk with his navy blue minivan while eating a banana. What? Not only was this a conservative automobile, the driver was actually eating a healthy snack. Doesn’t that lend one to believe he is an individual focused on safety and healthy choices? That kind of false advertising should be against the law. I mean, couldn’t he have purchased a BMW so I had some clue to his driving style? How can I make good decisions if people refuse to stay true to the stereotypes I’ve created for them? Am I asking too much? To make matters even more confusing, a sporty black Mercedes a few cars ahead of me was actually holding all of us up by insisting on driving the speed limit. Don’t these people read the rule books? Now I’m going to have to start subscribing to that old adage, “you can’t judge a book by its cover.”
lol, Drivers are insane everywhere, unfortunately. I never had a chance to form stereotypes down here on account of the fact that everybody drives like they just stole money from a bank and are trying to make a getaway.
I confess to cell phone useage on the road. It’s a bad bad habit. And now that my eyes are experiencing that “hold it as far away as possible” business, it’s even more dangerous, since I can’t see who I’m dialing and spend too much time looking/focusing at the damn cell phone “recently dialed” call list than the road. I almost wish they’ make talking on your cell phone while driving illegal so I would be forced to stop doing it.
Here in Hawaii, our visitors’ rental cars are so damn obvious, (Buick Sebring is a common one) and visitors (also known by their not so nice name, tourists) come in two varieties… either the kind who drive like old people, backing up traffice for miles behind them on our two-lane country roads, OR, the manic, pants-on-fire kind. To the latter, you wanna say:
“Slow down, this ain’t the Mainland!!”