So this morning in traffic people seemed odd and edgy. There was no middle ground. There were slow drivers blocking the flow. There were fast drivers riding bumpers. And there were no drivers in the middle.
Actually, you could be a driver in the middle, but if you were then someone was glued to your bumper, making it appear as if you were a slow driver blocking the flow of traffic. Mostly though, the slow drivers were truly slow, driving well below the speed limit on every road, as if in a daze.
On the drive home after work, traffic was not simply the same, but worse than this morning. The slow drivers were there aplenty, never exceeding 40 mph and rarely even reaching that before their minds wandered and they coasted back down to 30 or even 20 mph. The fast drivers seemed even more impatient than they were this morning, having perhaps drank a lot of coffee and failed to go pee during the workday. I'm only guessing, obviously.
I was stuck in the middle of an odd traffic situation, with a slow white Honda crawling in front of me and a Hunter green Chevy Blazer SUV riding hard on my bumper as if trying to push us all along faster. I had previously been behind the SUV, but he seemingly fell asleep at a green light and I passed him. It was at an odd intersection, still under construction, and people often pass slow drivers and narcoleptics when making a right turn there. I did so to him when he suddenly decided to pull halfway to the side and zone out.
And as soon as I had passed him he suddenly woke up in a rage and floored his gas pedal after me. He nearly hit me from behind he came up so fast. It was annoying and made no sense. I did what I always do when dealing with a seemingly insane or retarded driver on my ass, I flicked my mirror to the side so that he could view his own headlights at whatever level he chose to set them and I could see nothing of him at all.
Ignorance is bliss and when someone is on my ass I prefer ignorance to a good brake pedal, especially considering how much it hurts to get rear-ended when you're driving a minitruck. Believe me, it hurts a lot.
So there I am, crawling behind a slow white Honda, with the woman driving deeply interested in something or someone in her backseat, far more so than on the road ahead. She is doing about 30 mph and has accumulated a line of cars which includes me. I am simultaneously stuck behind her and being aggressively tailgated by High School Boy in his momma's SUV behind me.
At an intersection which briefly becomes 4 lanes I am rid of High School Boy along with several other SUVs that have been piling up in the line behind Slow White Honda Girl. At this point I expected High School Boy to break free and run happily away, now content that he was no longer behind either me or Slow White Honda Girl. But no, he did not exactly do that. What he did was to jump onto the ass of a very fast SUV that passed us both before him.
I drive as fast as anyone when I get the chance. It's pretty rare for anyone to ride my ass or pass me because I'm too slow. Some days I drive faster than others, but on most any day I'm a pretty good judge of speed. The SUV that first passed us all by in the 4 lane section was moving fast. If I had gotten behind him he would have left me behind even after I sped up to the speed I normally drive. But High School Boy wasn't happy. He was like Matthew Shepherd, determined to ride someone's ass whether they liked it or not. It didn't matter who was in front of him or how fast they went.
And speeding along right behind High School Ass Rider Boy was another SUV, riding his ass just as aggressively.
I eventually lost Slow White Honda Girl. The rest of the drive home was much the same, with everyone either driving very slowly, or very quickly and with extreme impatience. I did manage to get home without anyone else attaching to my ass, but that was only because the rest of the drive involved 4 lane roads with room to pass.
I don't know that everyone in this area slept poorly or was otherwise affected by the temperature last night, but they sure drove like it today.
You have read this article with the title Driving in Memphis (Loonies on the Path) - Part III. You can bookmark this page URL http://thebohemianbunny.blogspot.com/2004/11/driving-in-memphis-loonies-on-path-part.html. Thanks!
