Back in July when I accepted a new job in Salt Lake I commuted for a little over two months to work. From Orem to Salt Lake City, I drove every morning and every evening. It was horrible! I always considered myself a considerate and polite driver, with a reserved foot on the gas peddle. But All that changed when I was stuck on the busy I15 for 1.5-2.0 hours a day, or more depending of if there was an accident that day, and there usually was.
During this time, I became well acquainted with talk radio, and the vast quantities of those drivers which I would label "Stupid Drivers". Sometimes I would yell it at them behind the forever-stuck-rolled-up-windows in my Jeep Liberty.
Here are a few of the types of stupid drivers that now embody my driving pet peeves:
#1. The "Never-Signals-A-Lane-Change" Driver:
These drivers are vast and annoyingly unsafe. They zip and weave, treating those cars around them as if they were bees in a hive, always cognoscente of their intent to move, dive, or pollinate flowers... As if their need to let anyone of their intent to merge was not needed. I have to say, I on many occasion defended Utah drivers, always claiming that those drivers I had seen in rural Idaho had been so much worse. I now publicly rescind this claim in lou of the Never-Signals driver.
#2 The "Too-Destracted-By-Other-Things" Driver:
This not so rare bread of driver has no idea that they are even supposed to drive the large piece of
machinery to which their foot is accelerating with alarming Gusto. They put on make up, they text, they pick their nose and eat it! The vast ways these drivers distract themselves astounds even the most well versed in distracted driving.
#3 The "Too-Close-For-Comfort" Driver:
This driver is a notorious blight on interstate traffic jams! Accelerate and screeching halts are their bread and traveling butter. They ride so close to cars that they're practically able to change your radio dial for you. Never mind the appropriate amount of car length spaces per 10MPH rule. Nah, this all is ignored when a Too-Close gets behind the wheel.
#4 The "Too-Old, or Too-Drunk" Driver:
I place these two together not because they often drive together or because there are a crazy amount of drunk elderly people on our Utah highways, but because these drivers are often hard to tell apart because they are moving too slow or too shifty to safely follow behind. These are the cars and drivers you pass praying never to be between them and a "Too-Close" for fear of being rear-ended. These are the drivers we all hope to never be. But their seems to be the same; "As long as I have my license, I can drive. And if I go slow it will be safe" I say to you.... WRONG!
#5 "The-Slow-In-The-Express/Passig-Lane" Driver:
This driver laughs at all who dare to enter the far left lane. They find amusement in slowing to pitifully slow speeds, often matching the slow speed of the driver in the lane beside them. Because of these drivers, we lowly mortals must slow in the passing lane, thus negating the intent of that lane. We can't shift over and pass because there is no legal lane to pass them in on the left. Millions of poor souls have been trapped for days upon the freeways due to these drivers, never able to pass, never able to exit, just driving till our gas tanks sputter and we have to pull off and wait for a tow truck.
---
Of all these, I've found that I have on occasion voiced my distress loudly. The only thing keeping these poor stupid driver's from feeling the wrath of my verbal onslaught is the tragic fact that none of my windows roll down. These words will never reach their ear's never travel to their very core. Nope. Instead they will fly around the inside of my jeep, bouncing off my forever-stuck-closed windows. They hit me as I travel slower then I would like, trapped in the fast lane... never able to leave. -- Well, there goes my exit!
Drive safe out there everyone!
