Frustrated Car Honking

[Sarcelle]

Yes

Don’t set yourself up for a fall.

Traffic can bring out the worst in us. This is why I hate driving.

 

[dochawk]

Oh, I love driving.

It’s having those other drivers on the road that I’m not fond of.

It’s not that drivers in Las Vegas are the worst in the world (Tijana has us beat, and Puerto Rico just leaves us in the dust [i think they learned to drive watching videos of Tijuana! ])–it’s that we have bad drivers from all over the world!

In many cases, you can tell where a driver is from from the particular driving flaw (e.g., getting to the end of a long acceleration range at 35, and merging to the next lane before hitting 45, will usually have AZ plates).

When you have local bad driving habits, you can adjust for them (such as, “three drivers enter after the light turns red”), but when you have the random mix . . .

hmm, is it a sin to uncover the launch tube for the forward rockets when . . .

 

[Eri76]

No…i actually rarely experience roadrage or use my horn often…i was Very overtired
…sorry to justify myself!

 

[Beryllos]

hmm, is it a sin to uncover the launch tube for the forward rockets when . . .

Ha ha!

“If I had a rocket launcher…”

That song comes to mind only rarely here in suburban New England. Restricting our attention to the US, the worst drivers I have seen were around Washington, D.C.

 

[Sarcelle]

I heard the worst drivers in the nation were in Boston.

 

[Pattylt]

such as, “three drivers enter after the light turns red”),

I only have to worry about this when driving in Denver…the rest of Colorado is pretty obedient.

Most pleasant place to drive is Wyoming. Few people equals few cars, everyone waves at you for no reason…just to say Howdy…they obey road signs and long open highways are the norm. Wonderful!

 

[dochawk]

“If I had a rocket launcher…”

I regularly ask my wife if I can please have an AA battery as the helicopter forces me to pause whatever we’re watching.

OK, so they’re police helicopters, as my neighborhood has significantly deteriorated in the three decades we’ve owned the house.


The short story “Why Johnny Can’t Speed”, by Alan Dean Foster, envisions a world in which cars are armed. It opens with a condolence telegram from the highway patroll informing parents that their son had been killed in “commuter action” by a “Cadillac Marauder”, but that no violations of the vehicle code had been observed.

The father, mourning that he had let his son take the VW over his objections (instead of the buick), rearms the buick and goes out for revenge . . .

It’s the inspiration for the “Car Wars”, and was written in the wake of the LA freeway shootings. (in the late 80s, i had to drive through LA every few months. Driving a Plymouth Furry III wagon, I figured that they got one shot . . .)

I heard the worst drivers in the nation were in Boston.

I knew a bostonian that claimed they were trained to watch through the front window of the car ahead, which made their peculiarities safe!


However, when you know that that’s what the other car is going to do, you can plan for it . . .

I only have to worry about this when driving in Denver…the rest of Colorado is pretty obedient.

Denver was an adventure, yes.

I’ve driven in Boston, NY, Chicago, LA during the shootings, and San Francisco, in vehicles from air cooled VWs to a 1972 Impala. My father took me through “Blood Alley” the night he taught me to drive, after warning me to assume that the other cars were all out to get me–because half really were!

The only place I’m scared to drive these days is . . . a Roman Catholic parking lot after Mass! ("We will jump in our Chevies/We will Jump in our Fords./We will run down the Christians/As we sing “Praise the Lord!”).

I’ve also come to realize that my father was an optimist . . .

And I never realized just how brave he was until I got int he passenger seat to teach the third kid to drive . . . (he did four of us!)

THe first one I didn’t know what was coming (and she did well, anyway). The second, well, taught me fear (the first time out, I really made her pull over, drove home myself, and went straight to the liquor cabinet . . .).

And then the third time, having dealt with the prior ones, and realizing what could be coming.

One more . . . (ok, and teaching the thrid to parallel park, but that’s easy on the test here, with a space so long and wide that the3re’s really no reason to back in unless you’rein an old Cadillac Series 75 (same body as the limo).

 

[Pattylt]

My husband was the drivers education teacher for our two kids. There is no way I could have done it. I’m not patient or calm enough and I know it! Whereas my husband is now also teaching our grandson to drive so the tradition continues.

Actually, I wouldn’t drive with them until about six months after they had their license…let them get a bit of experience under their belt!

So, kudos to you for teaching them all!

 

[Peonies]

When she was in her early 20s, my mom taught her 78 year old grandmother how to drive. She had never learned how and suddenly needed to after her husband died.

I believe that is the most terrifying thing my mom ever did and she refused to be the one to teach her children when we were learning.

 

[dochawk]

When she was in her early 20s, my mom taught her 78 year old grandmother how to drive.

Oh, dear!



My mother’s mother never drove.

My father’s mother tried once, hit something, and refused to try again.

But they lived in San Francisco, one of a couple of the places in the country where usabale mass transit was possible, and had husbands and later sons to drive them.

I recall my mother learning to drive, and walking with her to my preschool with her pushing little brother in a buggy before she did.

An the brown splotch on the concrete on the freeway where a lesson didn’t go well . . . I was in college before she would drive on a freeway . . . and once I had my license, she’d claim the passenger seat in her own vehicle . . .