I grew up in a state that’s pretty well known for having assface drivers, so I’m no stranger to roadway douchebaggery. I moved to a west coast city where it was rather tame considering the amount of traffic, then moved back to the east coast and currently commute through a state that has the worst drivers I have EVER experienced.
I’m not talking bad drivers, hahaha, funny. I’m talking, WTF, that person almost just killed us because there was no space to merge but they did anyway, on purpose. It’s almost as if I’m living inside of a Darwin Awards book just waiting for the next near death experience to happen. I don’t care if they off themselves left and right, but I’d prefer to not be taken out along the way.
This is not some string of extraordinary incidents I’ve seen over a few months time. I have seem this behavior consistently over nearly 10 years. It’s truly a very different world driving there.
If I studied human behavior, I would have to surmise that this driving style is a defense mechanism, perhaps compensation, some projection, with maybe a little regression thrown in too. Let me give you an example starting with a question.
If you were driving rather slow in the passing lane on the highway and saw a line of cars approaching behind you, what you you do?
a) Continue driving slow while the caravan of cars behind you continues to grow longer
b) Yield to faster moving traffic by changing lanes
c) Speed up only if someone attempts to pass you to prevent them from getting ahead of you
If I’m assuming you’re sane, I’d guess that you’d choose b) as the appropriate answer, but let’s remember we’re dealing with, in my opinion, a good percentage of the driving populace known for their lack of good judgment on the roads.
Both a) and c) would be the correct answer in this state. To most people, they’d chalk up a situation like this as one bad egg and share stories of this detestable jackass. The only problem is it’s the norm for this state, and that particular example is only one of the many reprehensible offenses I see repeated on a daily basis.
This is where the idea popped up, briefly I might add. I started writing down each move I saw and giving it a name. The one from answer a) above was called the pace car. After awhile I had dozens of pages worth of incomprehensible maneuvers from these drivers.
I thought of creating a book or ebook called the unofficial drivers handbook for this state, but right off the bat I realized I would be limiting myself so much by only writing it for this one state. I don’t think people from other states would care about it either.
I also had a hard time keeping it light and funny. If I was going to sell this as some type of tongue-in-cheek comedic persecution, I needed to make it amusing, but that wasn’t working. I’d find myself unable to diminish the violations for the purpose of entertainment.
I thought that by writing out what I experienced and putting a funny twist to it, that it would also somehow diffuse the anger, but it ended up only reminding me of these often dangerous situations I had just gone through. Not worth it to me.
Limited market and a topic that boiled my blood is an easy pass. I don’t even have to feign starters syndrome for this one. This unfinished project was a mental health issue. 😛
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