Thoughts on Driving

I am going to tell you and I’ve said this twice before, I’m not a saint. And when it comes to driving, I’ve had my share of road rage and vengeance. But for the most part, I’m a very considerate and careful driver. It’s not hard. Common sense is the key here people.

Here’s a list of don’t and do’s for the road and some observations that I’ve observed in my 31 years of motoring:

1) If you’re lost, don’t drive 10 mph looking at every single street sign, braking every 30 feet or so. Pull over and let all the rest of us that have a clue as to where we’re going get by. Why do we have to suffer for your screw up?

2) If you’ve missed your turn, DON’T decide to just make your U-Turn in the middle of the road the minute you’ve discovered this! Panicking doesn’t help! It won’t hurt to go a couple hundred extra FEET to find an open parking lot or driveway to get back to your destination. Besides, it’s hell on your transmission.

3) Don’t you love the ones with the directional signal going off for miles?

4) I’m finding this most annoying out here…..when entering a MAJOR highway and you do have the open space to get on….ACCELERATE! Punch it if you have to! Get those 4 cylinders churning out the 95 brake horsepower to get onto the highway! The people behind you will appreciate it since they, too, have to get onto the highway.

5) Horns. Yes, I love my horn. It’s one of the best ways of letting someone know “YO, DUDE, I’m HERE!” It’s gets people’s attention! Even if you want to let them know they’re #1!

6) Why do people, who are doing 75mph on Rt. 80 put their brakes lights on? For no reason? No one is around them. Only the poor slob, mostly me, is behind them. And I’m not tailgating. If you need to slow down, just coast. Or move your hyper active ass to the slower lane.

7) This happened tonight: In the middle lane, 70 mph, cruising with the guy in front of me, no one in the left lane, the guy behind feels compelled to pass on the right. Did I transport to England or something? What was that all about? I mean, he didn’t do any harm, but it was just so random.

8 ) Toll booths. Ya gotta love them. Once you’ve paid, it’s like a day at the races. “And they’re off”….especially on the Garden State Parkway when you have a 20 booth toll and at least 12 cars leaving the booths all at the same time and all accelerating to see who can get into the three (narrow, mind you) lanes first! All you see are cars frantically switching lanes, and some poor person ends up on the shoulder for a moment because no one would let him in. Almost like “musical chairs”.

9) Of course, there’s always the road construction when they close off a lane for about 5 miles and there’s no work being done in that length of road. Meanwhile, there’s a 3 mile backup of people merging into two lanes and this one lane is just sitting there free and clear. Then up the road, there’s a sign that reads “Road work to be done on or about such and such a date”.  And not a soul around.

10) “Your Highway Taxes At Work” sign. Have you ever slowed down to read the rest of it? Are you kidding me?

11) School buses are my biggest nemesis. I could gripe about these for HOURS! I hate them. They can take a 15 minute ride and turn it into a 45 minute torture chamber. And they wonder why people get road rage.

12) I love the game drivers play with high beams. One is coming down the road with their high beams on. I have mine on as well. Who will turn their’s down first?

13) When we want the car to go faster, why do we make the motion in the driver’s seat, you know the one, you rock yourself back and forth, like it’s going to make the car go faster?

14) I’m not going to say too much about the text messaging or cell phone use. We all have seen it, roll our eyes, and just choke it up to ignorance. Did you know that you can’t use your directional signals if you have the phone in your left hand and are steering with your right?

15) Senior citizens make me nervous. That’s all I’m going to say. Ok, I’ll add this: Usually if there’s a 20 car back up behind you, there’s a Q-Tip in front.

Oh the Wheels on the Bus go round and round………

…………now they’re flat, that is that.

When I first heard that from a former friend, I almost pee’d myself laughing! And his kids loved it! I think it’s fabulous!

I hate school buses. I hate the people that drive them, ok, maybe not ALL the drivers. I can say that because my neighbor two houses down was one and I don’t like her. The driver that drove my kids was nice. Her name was Kim. She was cool. My kids never gave her grief, she never gave mine any either.

BUT

I really hate school buses.

When my kids were elementary, we lived next to the school, like NEXT to it as the sidewalk was just outside my front door. Such convenience. They walked. Life was good.

When they started to take the bus, they met at a mutual bus stop. 5 or 6 kids from that general locale would be there. They learned how to climb the street sign, balance on the curb, how far they could throw the crab apples from the neighboring tree, see how many they could get stuck under someone’s passing car….it was quite a way to jump start their academic morning. My oldest son, about 12 at the time, and a friend actually planned something while waiting for the school bus one morning. And carried it out when they got OFF the school bus that afternoon. They took apart some kid’s bike, that only lived a couple houses away from the bus stop, but always chained it to a sign post (which is illegal mind you).  And the bike didn’t even belong to this kid. The kid was an imp anyway. I thought it was rather amusing.

So, afterwhile, I took to driving my youngest to school. Then we moved out to Osh Kosh Land. The Middle and High Schools were quite a distance away.

Having them picked up at 7:10am, in front of the house, was nice. 6:30 in the morning is an ungodly hour of for me, even though I’m up, I can’t function too well. I never could even when I worked. Some people aren’t morning people. I’m one of them.  I did often ask them if they wanted to be driven. They declined.

Now….here comes the fun part.

Occasionally, I would have to either A) run something over to the school before school started or B) pick one of them up from school. Timing is essential here people.

I knew the bus schedule. The Elementary Schools started later. I was always screwed when I had to come back from dropping something off in the morning. The timing wasn’t good and taking alternate routes never helped either. They were EVERYWHERE! Like little beetles and ants. Turn down one road, there was one picking up an entire development! Lights flashing away, one by one, slower than a slug, they climbed onto the bus….about 20 of them. Meanwhile, in front of me are about 5 cars. Behine me? 10. FINALLY, they all are on and seated. And the bus trundled on.

If I took the other route, the bus picks up less kids, BUT….they stop at every single god damn corner! They stop, pick up one or two, lights go off, go about 500 feet, lights go back on….pick up one or two and so on down the road to nowhere.

A 15 minute drive turns into a 1/2 hour commute. No wonder my husband leaves for work at 5:30am.  If he didn’t he’d be at work by lunchtime.

This is the same scenario in the afternoon. Stop go stop go. The Elementary gets out BEFORE the High School. I had to time it so I wouldn’t get behind the school bus that dropped off the kid next door, but not leave TOO early as to have to sit in front of the school for 40 minutes. It was a race. There were times when I didn’t win and that 15 minute ride turned into 1/2 hour.

I’ve even tried to out run it by turning off, going through the development, back up the road and cutting it off at the pass. It works if you do 50mph through the development, 60 mph down the main and hang the right at about 40.  It’s hell on the car.

My son graduates this June. But this doesn’t mean I’m no longer going to have to deal with school buses. I just have to keep in mind that if I go out during those drive times, they’re out there….lurking….waiting to piss commuters off.