*Begin rant*
The following people should have their drivers license taken away permanently, or at the very least until they take an extensive 3 month driving “friendliness” courses:
-people who try and force their way into a turning lane after speeding past you in the strait lane
-people who don’t use their blinkers
-people who consistently drive 20mph over or 5mph under the posted limit
-15-17 year old white girls
-anyone who drives over things to pass someone (curbs, sidewalks, etc)
-people who think the breakdown lane is usable in heavy traffic
-tailgaters
-people who flash their lights at you to go faster when you’re in the RIGHT hand lane (there IS a left hand lane people!)
-anyone with those fucking blue headlights
-anyone who drives a “pimped” Honda Civic
-old men who drive any of the following with complete disregard for other people on the road because they think they’re “special”: a BMW, Lexus, Infinity, Saab or Audi
-women who drive ANY large SUV (sorry if that sounds sexist, but you really shouldn’t drive them if you physically have trouble handling them)
-women who drive a large SUV and talk on their cell phone at the same time
-people who double or triple park. You are dirty bastards with no regard for your fellow man.
-teenagers who weave in and out of heavy traffic because they need to get to the mall quicker. You’re the people that give young males a bad driving reputation.
-anyone who changes lanes without looking
The following are notes that bad drives may wish to read and hopefully realize the folly of their ways:
-Your bumper is not a place for political statements. No one cares how many whales you’ve saved, who you think is going to hell or who you voted for 6 years ago.
-If you drive an SUV, park FAR AWAY from the entrances to malls and grocery stores. Your car is too big and when it takes up 2 spots and normal people can’t park, it pisses us off.
-Having neon underneither your car does not make you cool.
-If you have to use your cell phone in the car, make it quick or get a hands free headset. Your wife calling you to ask you to pick up milk is fine but talking to a friend for 3 hours is not.
-If you’re planning on repainting your car, don’t prime it until you’re ready to paint it. Having a car that’s half gray just looks retarded.
-Unless you have a large conversion van or something similar, do not, under any circumstances, install a TV or flat panel in your car. Honda Civics were not designed to watch TV in. Take it out of your dashboard before someone gets killed.
-Soup is probably not the best choice for a snack to eat in the car.
-For the love of god, take those stupid little lights out of your hood. They’re even more ridiculous than a ground effects kit.
-If you’re trunk rattles against the car frame and causes noise on it’s own, you probably have the bass turned up too high. PS: we don’t want to hear your music either.
-If you’re over 70 you should be re-examined for driving ability. I realize that you’ve been driving for quite some time now, but when you only go 35mph on the highway, it’s more dangerous than if you were speeding.
-Unless you: are a professional basketball player, a really large/tall person, have a family of 10+ or need to move large amounts of things around on a daily basis, you don’t need an SUV. No, taking the entire soccer team to practice does not count.
-If you plan on driving an SUV you should be forced take a driving course in larger vehicles and get a separate class of drivers license. We do it for motor-homes, why not SUVs?
If everyone who follow these simple rules it would make everyones driving experience so much easier, namely mine. Most people drive normally unless they’re in a rush or are exceptionally stupid. The exceptionally stupid shouldn’t be driving and if you’re in a hurry, getting killed won’t get you there any faster. For the rest of you who just drive like retards, I hope you realize that you ARE despised by a large percentage of the population.
*End rant*
Gee, can’t tell that I had a wonderful day driving can you? So many stupid people live in this city. It’s remarkable to just drive around and witness some of the things that even NYC taxi cabs wouldn’t do. I thought New England had the worst drivers on the planet… until I came to the south. The difference is that up north, people drive like morons on purpose because they’re late or simply want to piss you off. People in the south drive like morons because they are morons. I’m sorry, you’re fundamentally flawed if you think it’ ok to change lanes without a blinker and without looking.
Anyway, besides my drive home, today was pretty normal. We watched a BBC production of As You Like It in Shakespeare and had another critique in Personal Vision. Standard stuff.
I also found out today that Justin, one of our friends from freshman year, would like to come down for spring break. Chip is already planning on coming down which would bring the grand total to 5 guys hanging out at our place all week. Justin would most likely stay at Nagle’s dorm downtown, not that we wouldn’t mind him staying here but we don’t have a second spare bed/couch. Of course everyone will probably end up crashing here anyways since it’s a pain in the butt to shuttle everyone from downtown and back. Regardless, it should be a fun week.
As for me, I’ve got to concentrate on finals at this point and bang out a few more shoots between now and next week. My ideas are few and far between but should provide me with at least some starting places. Usually I start off shooting what I had for an idea and 10 minutes later branch off onto ideas that are coming to me at that moment.
I’ve also been delaying in finishing Splinter Cell and C&C:Generals because I’d like to enjoy them to their fullest. Sneaking in a quick level or two before classes or when I should be doing homework doesn’t really count as “enjoyment”.
That’s about it. Matt out.
You forgot – people who procrastinate about getting their work done and then have to drive across town and “I broke several traffic laws to get downtown in under 5 (!!!) minutes.”
People who live in glass houses……..
A: I didn’t procrastinate, the photo store didn’t have them ready when they said they would. I actually dropped them off a full 48 hours before I needed them. I was also using that phrase metaphorically. The point in which I was saying “I had to get downtown quickly” the speed issue was merely to demonstrate my point. You should read more carefully.
B: Maybe I should add “people who don’t have the balls to leave their real name” to my list of asshats. If you have a divergent opinion that’s fine, but at least have the common courtesy to claim it as your own instead of lingering in the shadows of internet obscurity.
The “asshat” was merely quoting what you had written – I note that you have now removed that quote! You admit in your narrative that picking up the prints would be “tricky” as time was of the essence. I see no metaphor in any of the narrative. (Metaphor: the process of describing one thing as if it were another.) Kindly explain what “I broke several traffic laws to get downtown in under 5 (!!!) minutes.” is a metaphor of and I will gladly wear the “asshat”.
Relax – I was just trying to point out the irony of your rave about southern drivers – but be careful, you are sounding a little sexist, as well as “northist” – and you never know who reads your journal!
Yes, I did remove the quote, in hopes of making my original narrative more clear. I did NOT infact break traffic laws in any sort of brazen fashion. I did hurry. Call it exaggeration if you will but it was only for fictional “spice” to the story. I apologize for that. However I believe I also said “and if you’re in a hurry, getting killed won’t get you there any faster.” which is something I firmly believe in. I wouldn’t have weaved uncontrollable in and out of traffic and 90 miles an hour trying to get to a class on time. Some people would and its those people I’m trying to point out my problem with.
I have a high opinion of my driving skills, I find them above average. I also find that most people in the south have below average driving skills. I’m sorry but it’s true. Yes, that is being “Northernist” but I’m from the North and damn proud of it. As for being sexist, maybe I am. I don’t think women in general should drive SUVs. I don’t think that they’re physically large enough to handle a vehicle of that size. I also think that short, stocky men shouldn’t drive them. I also think teenagers shouldn’t drive them. Hell, I don’t really think ANYONE should be driving them but I’d be more comfortable with 7′ men driving them than anyone else. They have the physical ability to turn the wheel at least 90 degrees in case of an emergency. Most other people do not. If that makes me sexist than so be it. I personally wouldn’t even feel comfortable driving an SUV. I wouldn’t feel comfortable in something that size. I like to have control at my finger tips and like to know where the corners of my car are. I dislike not having control and it physically frightens me when other people I trust even less than myself don’t have control either. I’ve also been personally injured by a teenage girl driving an SUV so maybe this is some sort of grudge. I actually never realized that until just now when I thought about it. The nearest I’ve come to death was when I was in a head on collision with a 16 year old girl driving a Navigator. She over compensated to avoid a dog in the road and ended up losing control of the vehicle and slamming head long into my car. It was totaled (axles snapped, frame bent in half) but thankfully the “crumple zone” saved my life. Maybe that’s the basis for my whole anti SUV/Women driving sentiments.
Admittedly there are exceptions to every rule. Chip and I have a mutual friend who has an SUV, his wife drives it on a regular basis and handles it quite well. I’ve also met elderly who can drive rather well and teenage guys who don’t drive 90 in a 45.
And yes, it was rather ironic that I was hurrying to class the day before I rant about people hurrying to wherever they needed to be. I realize that. It’s not really those people I have a problem with though, it’s the people that hurry when they don’t need to. Am I a hypocritical person? You bet. Whats good for the goose isn’t good enough for me. But that’s just because I’m an elitist asshole, something I’ve known for quite some time. I have the highest standards for myself and my associates and a low standard of everyone else. I’m a jerk, an asshole, a bad person. I form opinions about things before I realize what they really are. I get mad instantly and become defensive even quicker. I’m easily offended and expect that everyone else has tough skin. I’m sexist and overly critical.
But I’m not. Only in certain situations do any of those hold true. For example: I’ve been called homophobic for my belief that you don’t need to speak with a lisp in order to pick out furniture for your living room. I think that part of gay culture is ridiculous. You didn’t talk with a lisp before you were gay, why would you need one after. I don’t hate gay people, hell, I even lived with a gay guy for 2 years. But I do think gay people should have a little more respect for themselves than having a self imposed speech impediment. For this I’ve been branded as a homophobe. I don’t quite understand it. When did having a problem with a particular thing become reason to blame or associate it with the entire category? I don’t like rap music but does that mean I hate black people? I don’t like NASCAR but does that mean I hate rednecks?
It’s so hard to take a black or white stance on ANY topic and express yourself clearly and without question. I have very one-sided opinions about a lot of things. I express them very bluntly. For this I apologize. Perhaps I don’t explain myself clearly enough each and every time I mention something I don’t like. I say simply that I don’t enjoy whatever it is and not the reasons behind it, thinking for some reason that because it’s only my “opinion” I wouldn’t need to back it up with statements of fact. This is my own fault when people don’t understand. What I would hope is that people would see them as editorials and opinions, expressed in a particular direction with a particular one-sidedness to their views. I don’t want to report “news” on current events or in this case driving statistics. I want to express my very side sided opinion about the crappiness of drivers around me. Obviously a 18 year old from GA with a pimped out Honda Civic would probably disagree with me on nearly every point, and he should. His opinions are not my own. But while he gets to express his opinions on his car or to his friends, I get to express my opinions here, on my very opinionated, very one-sided website. Sorry if that offends in anyway. It’s not MEANT to, but some people might take it the wrong way.
Sorry if this sounds like another long rant, I was only trying to explain my position. Didn’t mean to sound defensive or anything.
We could talk about this forever – however, I accept, and for the most part, agree with, all of your driving “rantings”. I may add a few personal favorites – the “hopped up” Honda’s with automatic gearboxes, ANYBODY who uses a cell phone while driving (yes I did say ANYBODY) – however, my absolute favorites are the people who will drive (usually an SUV) around a parking lot for hours rather than walk an extra 50ft to the store (now for my “ism”) – from what I can see, most of them could use the extra excercise!
Unfortunately, for a living I use state and federal data to perfom analyses of auto accidents. The results show that young people are always a higher risk than older people, and men are much worse than women. Perhaps surprisingly, the South is no worse than the North for severe accidents, but Florida has way more than its fair share of fender-benders. (I wonder why?)
As you drive (carefully) around the country, I think you will find each area tends to have its own idiosyncracies with regard to driving – personally, I think Boston drivers are the worst in the WORLD, mostly because they are inconsiderate (try merging into a stream of traffic – do they all have agoraphobia). However, I think Michigan takes the award for stop light ignorance, and Florida for left lane hogging.
Well, that’s my 10 cents – I think we should start a database of bad driving habits organized by state!
Have fun, and take care.
I forget where I heard it, I think it was on the radio or something, but I recall hearing that in some survey, something like 70-80% of all people think they are above-average drivers. This makes me wonder if people who are bad drivers don’t realize it, or if it’s just the bad driving of a relatively few individuals that taint our perception of what the average driver is like.
Anyway, my personal driving annoyance of the day is people who drive 40 down 101 from Manchester to Milford. It’s posted 50 almost the entire way.
I love talking about stuff with you guys. You don’t accept my opinions at first glace which makes me rethink and re-evaluate my position on things. I love in-depth discussions on things, which is probably why I chose to go to art school. We most certainly could talk about this for hours. I like both of your suggestions too, I should add them to the list. Chip’s personal gripe is also one of my favorites. Anyway, thanks for the discussion. It’s hard as hell to debate stuff around here without getting into talks about german expressionism or the surrealist movement of the 1920’s. 🙂
I personally feel that german expressionism had a major effect on the common perception of the average driver during the 1920’s.