Please Stay off the Road ...

I'm happily driving to work this glorious Monday morning, pretending: A) it's not Monday morning; B) I'm not all screwed up because of the time change; and C) I love to go to work, when I notice this woman wearing headphones while driving. Now this isn't the first time I've seen this but this time they weren't the little ear buds/ear plug kind. These were the full on Princess Leia Organa sort that cover the entire ear and probably came with that curly cord with a giant plug. How can you drive with those on your head? I know this is illegal (headphones generally) because I once got a ticket in PA for doing the same (at which time my Mom found out that I had my license suspended for 3 speeding tickets in 6 months (I was 18!)). I've actually had a few tickets in PA even though I never lived there - but no speeding tickets.

Then I pull up to a red light in the inner most lane (but not a dedicated left turn only lane) and the car in front of me, when the light changes, pulls into the intersection and then, and only then, puts on her signal to turn left. Now I'm stuck behind her with a parade of cars zooming by in the outer lane and I am stuck. This is not the first time this has happened either.

Then, a car pulls out right in front of me and proceeds to go 10 miles under the posted limit. On this particular road, that means he's going 15 mph. Doesn't matter that there was nothing coming behind me or the car couldn't have waited.

Oh, and I'll share the road with you my bicyclist friend when you begin to obey all the trafic laws. It's no wonder motorists hate bicyclists. I rarely tend to use my car horn but sometimes some idiot's behavior is so egregious that I'm forced to use. Sadly, I have one of those new fangled car horns that is built in so you kind of have to hit a region of the steering column and hope for the best. I have about a 50% rating on successfully hitting it. Instead, often I end up angry and frustrated, furiously hitting my steering wheel to no end ... except maybe a sore hand.

I only have a 20 minute commute, mostly on sidestreets so there is very little variance. But, in that 20 minutes, about 7 cars and drivers piss me off to no end so that by the time I get to work, I'm in a foul mood. Even though I generally tend to skew to the "you're an asshole" personality (or nascent sociopath as one on-line personality quiz suggested), I try to be a good driver. Won't someone else try the same?