The Department of Motor Vehicles goes to great pains to create long lines for all of us to stand in order to obtain a drivers license. I feel that they want our experience at the DMV to be as painful as possible. They require that we all pass a drivers test with an emphasis on our learning to be A COURTEOUS DRIVER!
So, you can imagine our disappointment when we finally do pass that test only to discover, once we hit the road, that many other drivers apparently failed the courteous driver part of the test.
I suspect the Department of Motor Vehicles must have had a busy day (an understatement) and took pity on those drivers and therefore sentenced the rest of us to a lifetime of dealing with them.
Because they will eventually be death of the rest us.
Here’s why. Ready…set…go!
I was driving in the fast lane—a 40 mile per hour zone—just a few miles away from my right hand turn. I’m doing the speed limit and not a single pedestrian in sight.
Suddenly, in my rear-view mirror, up comes Speed Racer. Yeah that Speed Racer, sans his sidekick chimp Chim-Chim, with all the drivers behind him doing their very best monkey see monkey do imitation riding his bumper. Lets call it six degrees (uh, inches) of separation.
It felt like the Indianapolis 500 with every car jockeying for position to get around me, and me trying to do the speed limit, as the car in front of me was being driven by that world famous little old lady from Pasadena.
Who appeared capable of doing no more than 35 mph. 
Refusing to get into the (SLOWER) right hand lane, she was content to stay in my lane. So since I had to get over anyway—and would be risking being rear ended if I stayed in the left lane behind her—I decided to let the old bag stay in the fast lane.
Since she’s courting death anyway I figured why not let Speed and his minions expedite the process!
So, I look to my right and flipped on my right hand signal, thus making my intentions known to all those WAY BACK THERE in the right hand lane. Better known as—the slow lane!
As luck would have it, a blind man—complete with seeing eye dog guiding his car from his drivers lap—who up until now was driving like a snail … do snails drive?—suddenly decided to drive like a bat out of hell and accelerated as if he were driving on the Autobahn.
Like a transformer, his Edsel morphed into a jet, and he cut me off before I could get into the slow lane.
The DMV calls this rude rage.
Once he passed, all the drivers in the cars behind me being impatient, began getting over into the slow lane in hopes of passing me on the right hand side!
Now I was cut off.
I saw my right hand turn looming and floored it, barely squeezing over in front of the raging horde of impatient drivers whose cars had just got out from behind me while moving into the right hand lane.
I ignored all the honking horns that greeted my arrival into, what they must have presumed to be, their lane.
Yay, I’d done it, and just before my turn too!
Just one problem; where in the world did the old geezer of a pedestrian come from and why did he choose this particular moment to apparently enter the crosswalk with the use of a cane.
My conclusion? Assisted suicide by auto.
Thank you, so-called courteous drivers who failed the DMV test, but who became road warriors from hell in what will now be forever known as…
Carmageddon!
In My Cluttered Attic 
They sound like north east drivers! Jersey especially has some pips. I believe I’ve met every one of them on the road.
I’m so sorry Kate. I hope your meeting with them was not a result of their rear ending you.
Just put in a call to the Snail Legion of the World (SLOW) – the official governing body of snails, to ask if they do indeed drive. They’re a bit slow in getting back to me. Congrats on winning the Indy 500!
I owe my win to tapering back a starch scarf, and whats left of my hair, in an attempt to look fast while sitting still in traffic. Hey, I’m a member of the order of (Slow)! Well, if you ask all of those who were impatiently following me I am. LOL. That was a funny one Paul.
My kids think I drive too slow, but if I’m going the speed limit and others are speeding I’m not driving too slow. They are driving too fast! It’s the bicyclists who scare me these days though, not the pedestrians! ~Elle
I practice defensive driving whereby I just assume that all the other drivers are going to do the stupidest thing they can think of. Works!
I think I was practicing offensive driving, but I had no offensive line.
Oh! I love Speed Racer!
I did to… until he became a tailgater. :O)
Hmmm, seems pretty normal to me…
Lol…assisted suicide by auto. Do you think there’s an underground movement we’re not aware if in this country?
Throngs of geriatrics, with walkers and canes, have taken to the crosswalks across America and are apparently joining (GPS) Geriatric Promoted Suicide. An underground movement that acknowledges millions of reckless and discourteous drivers with drivers licensees. These driver licensees were awarded by the DMV, charging drivers in possession of them, with the purpose of assisted suicide for the elderly, and any other trusting individual who feels using a crosswalk is an accepted risk.
Ahhhh…so the movement is much bigger than first realized. Do you think we can extend the carnage to unsuspecting ,rude tourists or do you think this is an age only movement. Because the tourist thing would be something I can get on board with.
No, it’s an equal opportunity suicide pact. They are even considering the possibility of including bicyclist. Particularly those who wear the colorful aerodynamic outfits. This is because they make easier targets, and virtually dare drivers to assist in their suicide attempts I think thiss i going to be really big!
I agree. I think the t-shirt business for this will be huge. We’ll have to come up with some slogans that are catchy. Something like…if you’re old and slow, you gotta go. Or…since I can’t drive a lick, you’re gonna fly like a brick. I even like…if that cane slows you down, you’re gonna be in the ground.
We could make a fortune.
With those t-shirts people will die laughing! Oh boy we’re gonna be rich! LOL 😀
You gotta have a plan. Think the Sharks might be interested? Imagine if we got on QVC?
Or ABC’s Shark Tank…the skies the limit George.
You should drive HERE!!
I’m currently in talks to get a Land Rover. Despite its name I think these things could tread water rather well. I should be there in a week—maybe two or three…okay maybe five?
This post changed the meaning of ‘you drive me crazy’.
Poor joke, maybe! :p
LOL Very apropos I fear. :O)
Haha!