As you all know, if you’ve read my posts, in my previous life I was a property valuer. This job involved lots and lots of driving, usually between 100-300 km per day, five days a week, for many, many years – you get the picture. In my time on Sydney’s traffic-filled roads I have seen it all from the drivers who learnt at Morons Incorporated Driving School, and hated most of it. If you don’t like listening to people whinging I would stop reading now because I’m going to talk about what other drivers do that drive me crazy (literally) and one incident which was just plain gross.
- You are driving along at a consistent speed and everyone is happy, when suddenly, the driver in front slams on the brakes! You narrowly avoid slamming into the back of them and while your heart is racing and you’re thinking, “Oh my god, were they avoiding a child, a dog, a pothole?” their blinker goes on and they casually turn the corner. Ok, who gave you your license idiot? The blinker is to warn me that you are going to put the brakes on to turn the freakin’ corner. Learn what those sticks things are on the side of your steering wheel column.
- Crawling along in a traffic jam, trying to make the best of it by listening to some cool music and singing along (in a “you shouldn’t go on American Idol”) voice, waiting your turn, when an arsehole zips down the lane nearest the gutter and pushes in front of the car in front. Two idiots here: the one doing the pushing in like they’re more special than everyone else – why should they wait, and the I’m-so-nice-it’s-sickening driver who let the pusher innerer push in. I hate both of you and I hope you get a flat.
- The inconsistent, taxi driver type driver who doesn’t know how to hold one speed on the highway. They accelerate then you see the brake light flash and they slow, then off they go again, speeding away, then the lights flash and they slow down – stop it, if there are any epileptics around they are going to have a fit. Just drive at the one speed, it’s not that hard.
- When you’re driving in the country (yes I do that occasionally) and the person in front won’t do the 100 speed limit. This always happens when there’s one lane and nowhere to overtake. You drive on their arse (now don’t tell me I’m shitting them please) so hopefully they get the hint, but nothing happens. You drive this way for ten minutes until eventually you see relief in the form of the “overtaking lane 500 metres ahead” sign. Woohoo! You plant the foot, but wait, what’s this? They accelerate too and won’t let you pass. You SOB, what are you doing, what the hell is wrong with you? They drive fast until it’s back to a single lane, then they slow down – I want to kill someone.
- Driving on a two lane each way road and you’re in the middle lane and there is someone just ahead who is in the gutter lane. They actually have their blinker on to turn the corner, so that’s cool, but just when you think it’s all good they swing into your lane before they make the turn. Morons Incorporated – you are not driving a truck, you are driving a Mazda 121, now get the f**k out of my lane.
- Travelling along and you are approaching traffic lights that don’t have a turning lane to go right, across the oncoming traffic (in America imagine this scenario in reverse and the idiot will be turning left). We are blessed with two lanes just in case someone is turning so we can go around them. As the lights turn red and we come to a stop no one has their indicator on so we all feel safe staying in the middle lane. Just as the light turns green it happens – the blinker on the car in front starts doing it’s thang. Are you kidding me? Now I have missed my opportunity to go around you because cars are flying past me on the gutter lane. I say the ‘F’ word a few times and resist the urge to accelerate and slam into the back of you and ‘help’ you turn the corner.
- Now we come to the ‘gross’ part. I was sitting at traffic lights in a fringe CBD Sydney suburb known affectionately as “The Cross” (Kings Cross). This area is known for it’s beautiful old buildings, proximity to the city and the many ‘colourful’ people who frequent its streets. I’m sitting at the lights with my window down, actually calm for a change because there are no stupid, idiot, moron drivers doing what they usually do to annoy me, and I happily look around at the people walking along. Then it happens, I see it. There is a man standing in the gutter. He looks like an alcoholic, possibly homeless and he is wearing a t-shirt and shorts. He is standing over a drain grate. His shorts are fairly short, short enough that he flops his old fella out of one short leg and proceeds to piss into the drain. Might I mention there are scores of people around and it is the middle of the day. I see what it looks like, I cannot, to this day, forget.
I am glad my new job of writing does not involve getting into the car too often because I’m sure I was headed for a heart attack or stroke because lets face it, hardly anyone drives as perfectly as I do.
OMG you were SO channeling me when you wrote this! I have been planninga similar post for months and it never happened. It can wait a few more months now.
Do you drive down Heathcote Rd much? The single lane slow down speed up thing happens there ALL THE TIME. I have a theory – they don’t feel comfortable doing the speed limit on a single lane but are OK on double lanes which is why they speed up! If true, they shouldn’t be on that road in the first place.
You forgot to mention the true nature of the ‘colourful’ people at the Cross. I don’t thik colourful quite covers it! You think the shorts incident was bad, I deadset saw a guy walking up William St – absolute starkers! No word of a lie, he wasn’t wearing a stitch. It was 4pm.
P.S. You are such a Sydney driver. We’d tailgate someone if they drove 1km under the speed limit. Don’t worry, so am I!
He, he, great minds lol. Yes I used to do that drive all the time. Roflmao – seeing someone totally naked walking down the street would not surprise me around there but you made me laugh. And yes we can’t help tailgating, but if people drove properly we wouldn’t have to 😉
LOL No. 4…..grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr yes, I used to live in the country and these morons were everywhere, I guess they are pushed out of the cities by the regular drivers and land right smack in front of you in the country. Great points, every one of them. I had a non-driving related but in the car incident just last summer. Parked on the side of the road at the entrance to a construction site, making my notes, when there was a knock on the drivers window, scared the hell out of me. I rolled the window down and there was a mostly toothless scrawny uhmm Crack Ho saying “Hey Mister, Wanna Date?”. It goes along with the image you can’t get out of your mind.
Roflmao! Ha, bet that gave you nightmares! I was sitting in my car one day, looking at the street directory in another dodgy suburb (why do I always seem to be in the dodgy ones?) and someone tapped on my window too. When I rolled down my window he asked if I wanted to buy drugs lol. Gee Peter do we look that desperate?
Was he well hung?
I suffer from road rage too. Thanks to my work and driving here, there and everywhere. I had a coworker who used to pull up to a moron offender, get the persons attention, the proceed to fire imaginary rocket launchers at them, grenades, a crossbow!
Too well lol, it was clearly visible from across the road! Lucky we’re in Australia and there’s gun laws.
LMAO! I feel you chickie! We see many homeless here (usually only in the summer tho) squatting for “relief” or “blessing” a building side. What really chaps me is they are usually next to a public place or convenience station and could use the restrooms there…but no…SO I’ll do you a favor and give you a mental image that haunts me, baggy speedos! When stationed at Cape Canaveral, during spring break, you saw all sorts of things that should never be…baggy speedos being but one.
That’s so funny, why wouldn’t they use the toilet? I was doing an aerobics class many years ago when a guy wearing short, very loose shorts was letting it all hang out. Very disconcerting when you’re trying to do crunches.
So true.
What is up with these people?
In Canada we have another category; tail gater. These people follow the car in front. Five of them in a row makes up what we call a wolf pack. You can’t get past them.
The practice started when it was snowing so hard you couldn’t see the road, so you’d follow the tail lights of the car in front.
But it continues even when there’s no snow.
Always a delight.
According to my kids I’m not fun to drive with as I’m always yelling at people in the Morons Inc. category.
Great blog!
Hi Louise, thanks for commenting 🙂 Shh, don’t tell everyone about a wolf pack, I’m sure word will get around and it will start here. Ha, wait till your kids start driving then they’ll finally understand what we non-members of Morons Inc have to put up with lol.
Great post, Dionne. I was a pharma rep for about 15 years, so driving was my daily grind also. There were days when I just could not face it. On rainy days, the morons came out in droves. People in California don’t know what to do with rain — they (not me, of course) become so excited, they drove even FASTER. Weeee–bumper cars! Let’s see if our insurance really does kick in, shall we?
There are a multitude of reasons I’m thrilled to no longer be a pill pusher (mainly that I hated it immensely), but driving the mean streets of my town ranked up there with being greeted by an apathetic high school receptionist asking “Did you bring us doughnuts?”
Yes. That’s why I went to college.
Great to see you Rachel 🙂 I can so sympathise with you. Is it evil if I sometimes wished someone would crash into a telegraph pole? (did I really say that out loud?).
haha I can relate to all of that. Couple all of that (besides the whole guy peeing in a gutter thing) with road construction and you’ve summed up driving in Ohio in a nutshell. One of my favorite incidents was the group of gangstas in a white Bronco who, incensed that I merged into traffic ahead of them, decided it was a good idea to swoop in front of me and brake check me in 75 MPH traffic. After that, and after nearly being killed by a woman on her cell phone while merging onto an exit ramp, I decided I was never driving in Cleveland (or any city for that matter) again 😛
Hi Andrew 🙂 I’ve decided if I’m ever rich I want to be chauffeur driven, it doesn’t even have to be in a nice car – just so long as I don’t have to drive lol
I think I told you about this the other day: We were having a white out, and it was rush hour (as near as you get in rural Alaska), and a white SUV pulls into oncoming traffic ON ICE. I almost went sideways avoiding them. They hadn’t cleared the snow off of their white SUV so the trim was hidden, and they drove in the snow rather than the mostly cleared portion kicking up an even greater cloud…then stopped (more than once) in the middle of the road as if looking for a turn. Of course because they hadn’t cleared the snow off their vehicle, you couldn’t see for the snow stuck to their lights, and the SUV was…WHITE.
I’m glad you were ok! How did humans manage to survive so long when so many of us are so stupid?
ROFL!!! You sound like me! Thanks for pointing me to this blog! Hilarious! Don’t forget when you are waiting behind someone in the gutter lane in a business section and the car in front of you stops when you have a green light to let in all the cars coming out of the parking lot so you have to sit through another red light when it was your right of way! Stupid people!
I’m sure there’s lots more I’ve left out too lol. Pointing you to my blog is the least I can do 😉