Wrongway Feldman

If that name rings even the slightest of bells, then you are either old enough to have seen Gilligan’s Island on primetime, or you’re from the Nick at Night generation.

I caught this picture at the park the today.

It shouldn’t, but it still amazes me when people think that their time is more important than the walkers, runners and bicyclists that use the lanes specifically set aside for them.

This 20-something girl decided to annoy the other people using the park rather than take the extra 4 minutes to go around the park to the exit.

Now, we could just assume that 20-somethingers tend to be self-centered,  I am just making a mountain out of a molehill, and blow the whole thing off.  Either this was International Ignore the One Way Signs Day or it’s not just an isolated “just barely past teen-age” incident, because in the hour I was at the park I saw at least three other people doing the same thing.

A 40ish guy in a Cadillac.

A younger guy in a Toyota.

And an even older guy (I think, there was a glare on the windshield) in a Lincoln.

I know you guys think that the world revolves around you, and that saving you the 4 minutes a drive around the park would take is worth annoying, endangering and scaring the hell out of the lesser peons that use the park, but I hate to tell you this: you’re not all that wonderful.  Seriously.

Stupid is as Stupid does.

It never ceases to amaze me that some drivers think that every foot closer that they are to my back bumper is going to make their trip that much shorter.

And it amazes me even more when the stupid driver is in a little Toyota Camry and they are tailgating my 1972 Ford LTD.

 

 

 

 

I was driving down 3900 South and this Camry was riding my ass like we were best friends.  More than best friends.  And it’s not like I’m a slow driver, I was already going 40 in a 35MPH zone.

So I slow down.  I figure that if you are supposed to keep 1 car length between cars for each 10 MPH of speed, the closer they get the slower I go.

She didn’t get the hint.  Instead she gets closer, and starts mouthing things that I’m sure were not nice.

So I tap the brakes, a visual signal that most people take as saying “Uh, a little close, aren’t you.”

Instead this dumbass takes it as daring her to get even closer.  So I tap the brakes again.  Instead of taking it as meaning that I would just like her to follow at a safe distance, it becomes a challenge.

So I come to a complete stop in the middle of 39th South and then stomp on the gas and put a good distance between us even before she realizes I’m moving again.

She catches up to me as I’m going straight through the light at Highland Drive and flips me the bird as she turns right.  I just wave and keep going.

See, I know from experience that if I had needed to stop quickly and if she had rear ended me, her car would have been a lot worse off than mine.  Not to mention that, legally, it would have been her fault.

Dumbass could have simply left a reasonable amount of room between her car and mine.

4-wheel drive – 0; stupidity - 1

… On the way to work today, right before 4pm, the traffic watch on the radio station I listen to told of 6 or 7 different accidents causing delays for the daily commute.  It never ceases to amaze me how Utahns forget how to drive in snow over every summer.

… To me, the worst offenders are the people in 4-wheel or all-wheel drive vehicles.  They seem to forget that despite the fact that they can get through a lot of stuff those poor 2-wheel drives can’t, that they neither stop nor corner any better than any other car on the road.  Case in point, the Jeep in the picture.  We heard about it from a customer, and of course had to look out the back door of the Chevron and check it out.  I have no idea exactly what happened, but they were high-centered on a huge boulder.  To do that they must have been going  fairly fast, to have the momentum to get up on the rock.

… But, hey, they have 4-wheel drive.  They were able to get going fast up the hill, why shouldn’t they? It shouldn’t be able to be pushed around by slush and snow on the road.  It shouldn’t lose control and slam into the median.  No matter how fast they go, they wouldn’t end up being yanked off a big ol’ rock by a tow truck.  Then again, maybe it would.