Because of the distance from my best friend, my daughters (two of whom reside with my ex-), and one in college, I spend an inordinate amount of time on the road. This has forced me to the (conservative) estimate that 60% of humanity are fucking morons. These come in a number of different flavors, but it’s like choosing “first among equals.” In no particular order, the worst offenders.
People with extreme political bumper stickers, particularly those that say shit like “Coexist” (in that funky spelling with the fertile crescent as the “C”) or “Make peace, not War” or some other such inanity – I can’t tell if they’re actually on weed while they’re driving, but they tend to occupy the left lane at speeds that may approach, oh, I don’t know, perhaps 52, and then when you get close and give them a chance to move, they take a quick look in the mirror, and then “hunker down.” You can see the aggrieved look on their face as they trap a wall of traffic behind them, indignant about how fast you’re going and how they’re going “fast enough.” (As an aside, I’ve reached the conclusion that the truest definition of an asshole is someone who’s going 5 MPH less than you want to be going and who won’t get the fuck out of your way.) I don’t care if you think you’re going fast enough – maybe I’m in a rush; maybe I’m suffering from hypoglycemia and I’m going to fucking die if I don’t get home and get my meds in 5 minutes; maybe I’ve got the shits from that bad chili I ate and I’m about to crap myself; whatever – GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE LEFT LANE! It’s not yours. It’s for passing – and people who are moving more quickly than your mollusk-like ass. Thus, it’s name: the “high speed lane.”
The next group of douchebags are those on cell phones. I realize this may even offend some relatives and friends, but listen to me – put the fucking phone down or get an earpiece or other hands-free device. You’re going to kill one of us. I need to get funding for an experiment that will explain why it is that as soon as you bend your left elbow and put a phone in your ear, your ability to observe the world around is instantly cut off. I can spot one of these mini-van driving “real housewife” types from 800 yards away. You just see the slight weave into other lands, the over-correction, disconnected-ness from the flow of traffic, and you just know that as you get abeam you’re going to see some fucking bleach blond yammering away, and trying to look in the rearview mirror, then switch lanes and kill about 4 people because she’s just realized she needs to get over to that exit that she takes every fucking day for the last 8 years but she’s about to miss because she’s got her head up her ass. At some point, sufficient stupidity becomes the functional, legal equivalent of malice. If you kill me because you’re so fucking stupid that you’re oblivious to the rest of us breathing, sentient beings on the road, why is that any different than if you intentionally ran me off the road? I’m just as dead either way, right? That’s how we charge people with criminal culpability when they’re drunk driving. Does anyone think that the guy who is completely potted and swerves into the other lane intended that to happen? Of course not. Poor sot doesn’t even know he’s in his car – he thinks he’s holding onto the toilet bowl. But we make that criminal. Stupidity of sufficient magnitude to harm others should be likewise criminal.
And yes, because I’m on the road a lot, I do make and take calls in my car. And guess what? I use a hands-free device. And even more importantly, I’m better at this than you are. I flew helicopters and learned to fly both helos and fixed-wing, where I was required to learn how to “aviate, navigate, then communicate.” So, I’m perfectly capable of leading a section of attack helicopters carrying ordinance on a night-vision goggle mission, make all radio calls, and not crash the fucking things. Alas, I’m better at this and can multi-task. Fuck you. Get out of the left lane and get off your phone.
The camper crowd. I’ve had it with the giant camper, towing a car, toodling down I-95 at about 55 (on a 65 MPH highway) driven by some retirees who are adamantly NOT going to move over to the right lane. Even going uphill. Evidently, your Canadian “Je me souviens” license plate ignores the fact that you can’t fucking remember what the speed limit is or some common fucking courtesy for the rest of us. I’m not going to add a separate category for old people. I’m sure my rant will reach my grandmother and other card-carrying members of the AARP. So, I’ll just lump them in with these camper-driving dipshits. Suffice it to say, you get past a certain age and you need to take a new test because YOU SUCK AT DRIVING!! AND I CAN TYPE THIS AS LOUD AS I WANT BECAUSE YOU CAN’T FUCKING HEAR ME, EITHER!!! I KNOW THIS BECAUSE WHEN I HONK MY HORN, YOU LOOK AROUND AS IF A PTERODACTYL JUST MADE NOISE FROM OUT OF THE CLOUDS.
The Greyhound and other buses who are going just fast enough to make it a dicey proposition to go by them on the right – where you are likely to run into one of the above-mentioned idiots who at least has enough sense to be in the middle lane – or the Fung Wa bus from New York taking all of the gamblers to the casino. Hey? Didn’t your company’s license get revoked already for those fires that killed a shitload of people? What the fuck are you doing on the road in the first place? Much less in the high-speed lane breaking my balls.
The dude with blinker on for the last seven miles. He can be his own category, or belong as a subset of any of the above. I heard a comedian once refer to this guy as “the guy going around the world to the left.” Can you not fucking hear that click-click, click-click, click-click noise that’s been going off for the last 10 minutes? It’s not like you’ve got an iPod on, or Guns n Roses cranking on that awesome Bose stereo, because typically you’re in a fucking sedan that still has an 8-track. A little situational awareness, please? You’re confusing the rest of us.
This about covers it, really. Please note that these are not distinct categories, but a vehicle in more than one of these categories is likely to be worse by an order of magnitude. i.e. The “real housewife of Hartford, CT” on Route 2 with her blinker on, in the minivan with the peace symbol on the back, is a fucking death-trap. Get as far away from her as you can.