Morons in our Midst

On Saturday we had a nice thanksgiving up in Nanaimo this year. We had a wonderfully cooked prime rib with all the fixings. Mmmm.  

On our trip back after dinner on Sunday afternoon, things were going well, when all of a sudden traffic started slowing down and moving to the left lane. There had been no signs for construction, and my immediate thought was perhaps there was an accident ahead. Sox was driving, so she stayed in the right lane, but slowed down.

I was very confused why everyone wash upping to the left lane as soon as they saw a slow down. We passed quite a few people, then one guy in a black pickup decided he was going to get into our lane too. I thought he was going to pass some people, but no, he actually wanted to block us from passing. Then the dip in the mini van did the same thing (sort of). These two drove like that for over a kilometer, for no reason. They simply didn't want us to pass them. 

The traffic slowdown turned out to just be a slowdown from a merge to a single lane. Sox and I fumed about these morons behaving like children. If they had wanted to get around traffic, they should have pulled out and passed.

The single lane eventually returned to two lanes, and most of the traffic stayed in the left lane again. Weird. Not these though. No, they gunned it passing a bunch of people in the right lane. Precisely the thing they were blocking us from doing. 

Infuriatingly bad driving.

Drivers. I rant about them a lot here. I saw another one today that had me shaking me head.

The horn on a car can be used for lots of things. One reason to use it is to let someone know they are doing something wrong.

At Head St and Esquimalt Ave today the left turn lights were active. The truck in the left turn lane started to go, but a car in the opposing traffic also went straight through. They had a red. The driver of the truck patiently waited for the bonehead to completely blow through a red light before making their turn. I would have been laying on the horn at the person.

Another instance was a left turn at a time of day when it was not allowed. Bay St onto Tyee, you can turn left except between 4 and 5:30. One day around 5 a semi sat in the intersection blocking traffic, making a left turn. Nobody honked at him.

Come on people, these are perfectly good times to use that horn. Scare the crap out of the wrong do-ers.

People in Victoria are silly. We have a drawbridge downtown, and when it goes up, some of the traffic heading into our out of downtown can get backed up.

Friday was an example of this. Where I was stopped on Esquimalt Ave, I could see the bridge in its up position. There were quite a few cars waiting, but it wasn't going to be long.

In my experience, if you get caught in the bridge traffic, it is better to sit and wait it out, rather than drive out to the Bay St bridge. Still, I see lots of people turning around and heading to the other bridge. I don't get it.

Chill out. Turn off the car. Talk with the other occupants. Listen to the radio. Be patient.

On Friday I laughed at many of these impatient people. I saw one Mini Cooper pull a U turn in the middle of the road and head to the gas station next to me. Next thing I know he comes peeling out of there to cut in front of me. Weirdo. As the bridge was on its way down I saw at least three cars pull out of their spots in line and turn around, or head to Bay St. Simply meant I got to my destination a little quicker.

It would be handy if the blue bridge got its own twitter account though. Imagine receiving a tweet before you were about to head out and know the bridge was going to go up. You could conceivably save some time this way by choosing an alternate route, or just wait for the subsequent tweet saying the bridge was going down. I wonder if I could make that happen?

To the Ass-Clown in the Grey Dakota:

When I am driving I tend to use my turn signals. It would be swell if you noticed that. In addition, I typically don't stop in my lane right in front of a road with my turn signal on for no reason. Sometimes the road is blocked, or traffic can't move (sometimes due to some flaky chick pulling a horrible u-turn). It would be super-swell if you didn't honk at me, then pass me on the left, thereby making an already silly situation more unsafe. Add on that this was in a residential area and there really is no excuse, nor hurry grand enough to explain your idiotic driving abilities.

Have a nice day.

Driving a car is not that hard. Merging onto the highway is not that hard either, yet many people have issues with it. I don't get it.

Highway traffic is driving fast. I don't want to get hit by

a fast car, so I use the merge lane to closely match the traffic speed, then I can move over onto the highway.

Today I was getting onto the Island highway and there was a yellow sunfire in front of me. They weren't going all that fast in the merge lane (around 50 KM/H), but then they caught up to someone. The front person was doing about 30 KM/H. Agonizing, and very dangerous.

The lead car did not speed up, and half moved over to the right, but then moved to the middle of the lane again (no signal of course). I checked the highway traffic and thankfully there wasn't any so I dropped a gear and moved onto the highway passing both the yellow car and the slowpoke.

The yellow car followed me.

Turned out that the slowpoke was wanting to pull over to the side and help someone who was tyeing down some stuff in the back of their truck. Come one. Think a bit. Use your signals, and the the hell out of the way. That moron endangered several of us by being stupid.