I’m sorry but I have to get this off my chest. No, I’m not sorry.
So today I turned from the main road leading to my part of town onto a side street which enters into my neighborhood. It’s like the primary route into my neighborhood… Right? Got that? No brainer. The street is one of two primary access points into my neighborhood.
The main road is a 40 mph road. As I approached my right turn I slowed down. I always slow down because I am turning from a 40 mph road onto a 25 mph road AND it’s a blind turn. In other words, I can’t see what’s around the corner until I’ve made the turn. Why? Because the shrubs and trees in front of the house on that corner are too high and thick. Therefore nobody can see around the corner until they’ve made their turn.
I made my turn. There was another car right behind me. As in right behind me. That driver wasn’t the problem. The problem was the driver backing out of the driveway on the right side of the street, a driveway which is just a few yards from the corner- the blind corner that is a blind corner because of all the damn bushes and trees in front of his house which obscure the street.
I was driving slow enough to stop and let him back out. The car behind me stopped as well, midway through his turn onto the street. No problem. We were both paying attention.
But what happened? The idiot backing out of his driveway yelled from the driver’s window— “Driveway! You idiots! There’s a driveway there!”
No shit Sherlock!
We both saw you and we both stopped sans screeching of brakes. I’m sorry, but in a blind situation like this the onus is on the person backing out of the driveway. He’s damn lucky I wasn’t a teenager because young drivers tend to come flying around that corner. I forced myself to swallow my road rage. What I really wanted to do was go all Helena (Orphan Black) on his ass.
Oh, I am so serious.
Jerk.
Last week, not this week, but last week, Jake and I were at the beach- It was the beach trip when we saw the killer whales eat the sea lions. Yes, that one. It was a great beachy morning.
So there we were, all happy and content, driving away from the beach in a great mood- not because the sea lions got ‘et up, but because it was just a great beachy morning and this dumb bee-yotch ruined my morning. Pissed me off so bad I’m still chewing on it.
I wanted to punch her in her smug judgmental elitist face.
Here’s the deal. The road leading from the beach is a short straight two lane road with wide shoulders. There’s an institute there that provides week-long nature camps for elementary school children. I should know- two of my three children went to camp there. The speed limit on the section of road near the institute is 15 mph.
I typically see kids hiking alongside the road, either on the shoulder or on a nearby trail, accompanied by a couple of naturalists/counselors and maybe a parent or two. I pay attention. I stop at all crosswalks. I drive slowly past groups of kids, keeping one eye on the road and one eye on the kids because you never know when 5th and 6th graders might decide to goof around and toss each other into the road.
In all the years I’ve been visiting this beach I’ve never had a problem. Until last week.
So I backed up out of my parking spot. There was no traffic. In fact, if you recall, Jake and I were the only two people at the beach. When I put the car in drive I noticed a line of school kids and a naturalist standing on the opposite shoulder down the road a ways. Maybe 200 yards ahead of me. There was no crosswalk there and it seemed like they weren’t crossing. I assumed they’d walk along that opposite shoulder until they came to the crosswalk and then cross over to the beach. That’s what these groups usually do.
Nevertheless, I drove at the posted 15 mph speed limit and I kept one eye on the kids to make sure nobody decided to cross in front of me.
That naturalist, this bee-yotch, jumps out into the road as I’m approaching, scaring the crap out of me because I thought maybe there was a kid hidden from view on my side of the road, and she yells at me- “Too fast! Too fast! Bad driver!” And she proceeds to give me a two-thumbs down sign. While she’s standing in the middle of the road ignoring everything around her.
And then a car comes from the other direction, from the downhill section of road that’s 35 mph and he has to slam on his brakes because she’s standing in the middle of the road and he swerves into my lane to avoid hitting her and runs me off the road. And of course she screams at him when she is the reason we almost collided.
When I was forced to swerve off the road I could have hit a bicyclist or a hiker. Or a tree. Or damaged my car.
If she hadn’t been with a group of maybe 15 or 20 kids I would seriously have had words with her. I could not believe she behaved like such an idiot. The kids were perfectly safe. I saw them. My speed was appropriate. All of the kids were well onto the shoulder. The car coming from the opposite direction saw the kids too because I noticed he slowed down as he came over the crest of the hill. But his eyes were on the kids, as they should have been. Apparently he didn’t see the idiot in the stupid floppy hat wearing stupid khaki shorts and black knee-high socks standing in the middle of the road so busy giving her dim-witted two-thumbs down sign to me that she was oblivious to the fact she was about to get squished.
Had she gotten herself squished I would have gone to the ends of the earth to defend the other driver.
Rant over. So annoying. Oh, yeah. I got one more for ya. Last time Jake and I drove to the beach this guy in a black BMW passed me, and four other vehicles in front of me, including a semi-truck, on a dangerous two-lane highway in a no passing zone. He was going about 90 mph. Ran a family in an oncoming car off the road.
I would seriously like my next car to come equipped with a phaser. I’ll be evil Spock.
