1. Thou shalt turn on thy headlights when it pours cats and dogs. Honestly. It was nearly pitch black outside - how these morons saw their gauges and such inside the car is a mystery to me, much less how they could navigate anywhere in the dark. Ah...I just reread that and realized that PART of their driving problems may have been that they weren't paying attention to gauges and such. Speedometer? Who needs it!!!
   
2. Thou shalt NOT pull out in front of people going nearly full speed on a busy highway. Asshat. I was driving 40 MPH down Hwy 98. The speed limit is 45, but under normal condition traffic runs about 55. 40 was as fast as I could go and be able to see the car in front of me, which was about 3 car lengths away. Safety first, my friends. Then this little blue car comes SCREAMING out of Crystal Lake apartments, crossing the westbound lanes into the median. I saw her brake lights come on, so I assumed (my first mistake) that she was, you know, stopping. She contemplated the traffic situation on MY side of the road for about .00000764235789 of a second, then slammed on the gas and pulled out directly in front of me. Oh...the string of obscenities...the horn honking (and my horn honest-to-god sounds like the Road Runner: "Meeeeeeeeeep!")... I stood up on the brakes and skidded, but didn't hit her. Lucky for her, too, because once I pulled myself out of the smoking wreckage and into the rain I might not have been in a very good mood.
   
3. Thou shalt not drive through standing water. Moron. "Gee, there's a lot of standing water here in the right lane of Navy Blvd (near the intersection of Old Corry). I don't want to drive through it, so I'll just pull over!" Great thinking...except this person pulled over INTO A DITCH. Know why she didn't know it was there? Because it was FULL OF WATER! The same goddamn water she was driving through on the road.
   
4. Thou shalt not pile up a mountain of red clay dirt (for interstate construction purposes) right next to the interstate. This one goes out the local government AND the brilliant contractors doing work on I-110. Good job, guys. Near the Fairfield Dr. exit on the northbound side, there is a gargantuan pile of red clay that they're using to build the new off-ramp. It's convenient to the work site, yes. I was wondering the other day what would happen if they dug it out incorrectly and it collapsed onto the interstate...I'm a regular little ray of sunshine, I know. Anyway-it is literally butting up to the interstate. As I was trucking up I-110 on my way to school I saw a bottleneck in traffic at the Fairfield exit. As I got there, I realized there was a river of red clay running down the road...it looked like blood rapids, in all honesty. It wasn't running so much as churning down the road. As I got closer to what was left of the giant red mountain, I actually burst out laughing. There was clay EVERYWHERE over the interstate. You could see where it had run through the seams in the concrete dividers that work masterfully when it's not raining...but suck balls once things get really wet.
   

Labels: driving