Vroom Vroom Horrors: Drivers who Piss me Off!

28 Nov Vroom Vroom Horrors: Drivers who Piss me Off!

Check out this scenario. You’re bobbing yuh head to Bunji Garlin’s “Bless U”, mindin’ yuh business, while waiting for the traffic light to change on the Churchill Roosevelt Highway. Suddenly, some imps shoots out of nowhere, attempting to cut in front of you, making you swerve, and maybe even slam your brakes, while you pray that none of the cars behind you ram yuh bumper.

“Yuh dotish owa?” Dais de only ting dat could pelt out yuh mouth, even if they can’t hear you because your windows are up. Okay, maybe yuh pelt some cuss, and honk yuh horn. I can’t blame you, because drivers who make us engage in road rage, and endanger our lives are the bane of our existence in these traffic-filled times.

Sometimes I dream of installing a Mactruck’s horn in my hatchback, so that I could scare the living daylights out of discourteous and dangerous drivers (and de people who take dey time to cross de lights by City Gate). I also dream about ramming into them (de drivers, that is) just fuh spite. But on the roads, reality rules.

If our cars worked like Knight Rider’s, we could happily ignore them. But since Kit won’t save us, hopefully this rant will invoke the power to get them to relax on the roads until 2012.

Women drivers

Yes I will happily heap criticism on my sistren from the get go, and say that most times, when a driver does some sort of idiot manoeuver on the road that tests your patience, it’s a woman. But they don’t just piss me off because of their clumsiness; they also piss me off because of the consequences.

Decades of women driving like they’re scared is what has brought the plague of men who think that every time they see a woman driving or parking that they must give her directions. You reverse parking just fine you know! You know exactly how much space there is between you and another car, but men feel the need to tell you, “Lock to the left. Okay, straighten up dey. Yah ha space… come back”, while doing their best police-conducting-traffic gestures. It irritates me every time. See the pain you women who can’t drive well have caused us women who can?

Sloooooow drivers

I get it. You’re a safe driver. But did you not learn the meaning of fast and slow in primary school? The fast lane is for driving quickly. Not at 40! Go crawl somewhere else.

And word to the wise, the same way that driving too fast is a serious hazard, driving too slowly can cause harm for others as well. I’ll always remember driving onto the Valencia stretch, and the woman in front of me (hadda be a woman eh!) was driving at about 20 kilometres. Ah mean… she had the rest of us behind her squeezing our bamcees, because you know how people does speed on dat stretch out of nowhere! Nobody wanted to get ‘lick up’.

Bougie drivers

So because you’re driving a Mercedes, Audi or Touareg, you really think I’m not gonna bounce you? You’re right. I’m not going to bounce you. I don’t have $5,000 to spend on a side mirror, far less the ridiculous amounts of money to repair a door. However, because you’re driving ‘rich people car’, that doesn’t mean you can drive as you want, because we, the drivers of less elite brands, would do our best not to hit yuh, even though you’re the one driving like the a$$hole.

Telephone lovers

Okay, most of us do it at some point in time, because like plenty ah we have thousands of dollars to waste on a ticket. But what irks me are drivers who chat on their phones, while zorcing at 100, or switching lanes, and dey not paying attention to what’s going on around them. Whether they’re on a major or minor road, they trying to do some sort of fancy manoeuvre, and you’re there like, “Watch whey yuh going nah!” And then you realise the person’s on the phone.

No people. If you’re on the phone and driving, pull to the side, or go with the more realistic move (because how many of us really pull aside?) – switch to the slow lane, and relax yuhself. Do not attempt to multitask behind the wheel. Like Kanye West says, “Drive slow homie”. (Yeah ladies and sloooooow drivers, this is when you drive slowly.)

Need for speeders and bad drivers

These are the ignorant drivers who love to ‘bad drive’ yuh. No courtesy on de road. No indicators. No hand signals. They drag race, as they please, because like they daddy pave de road. They switch lanes like a madman after dem, only for you to see they’re turning off a few centimetres away (okay I’m exaggerating, but you know what I mean)… or five minutes later, they’re cruising at 30. Steups!

These are the dangerous drivers who are sometimes responsible for the flowers we see on the highway, marking loss of life. These are the drivers who make a camera system on our highways and byways necessary, so that the law can catch all of their wrongdoings, and snatch away their licence before they harm someone. Sometimes, these are also the drivers who live to ‘bad drive’ another day, even if they caused an accident that leaves others in critical condition… or dead.

In a practical defensive driving I did, the instructor said that driving is one of the most dangerous things you do on a daily basis. I believe him. And with Christmas and New Year’s only a few weeks away, you know some people are going to get extra happy – aka stupid – on the road. So you have to be extra careful.

I could go on… and on. I could talk about the drunk drivers. I could talk about those who don’t know about switching lanes the right way, and stop on the highway in a lane waiting for someone to give them a space, instead of maintaining a steady roll, and switching when there’s reasonable space to do so. I could talk about the maxis and taxis who stop and block up de road to make ‘small talk’, and get change from their fellow maxi/taxi friend (and that’s the least of their sins).

Daft and dangerous drivers need to be outlawed, because, really, they make it so easy for you to see your life flash before your eyes, or get high blood pressure. With the ever-increasing number of cars on the roads, something has to be done about this. So to help me add more categories to the letter of complaint I’ll be sending to the Ministry of Transport, tell me, what kinds of drivers piss you off?