Road Rage!

Hi, my name is Alicia, and I have road rage. But I don't think this road rage is completely unjustified, because I have had a fair amount of experience driving in stressful environments. Don't believe me? Here are my qualifications:


1. Learning to drive in North Dallas.

2. My primary instructor was my dad, who commuted through Dallas traffic twice a day for work for almost 20 years.

3. I-35 between Waco and Dallas. Let's average once a month for 7 years. Enough said.

4. Morning rush hour between Plano and Denton during that semester I was at TWU.

5. Lots of afternoon rush hour experience in Dallas, Ft. Worth, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio.

6. Living in a college town full of spoiled white kids driving their daddy's BMWs and fancy SUVs, but not knowing how to properly operate and park them.

Taking all the above into account, I think you can see the source of my road rage. So, when we moved up here to a much smaller town, I figured my inner road rage beast would be soothed into silence. Yeah, not so much. I have never, repeat NEVER, in all my years of stressful driving experiences, encountered such crappy drivers as I have here.

Stop signs are a completely foreign concept to these people. Allow me to explain it. It's a BIG RED SIGN that says STOP in huge letters on it! I think the meaning is pretty obvious.

It means STOP.

What the stop sign does NOT mean:

--Continue through the intersection without slowing down.

--Only slow down when you realize someone else is coming to the intersection too. Then, slam on your breaks and barely stop in time (going completely past the white line), scaring the crap out of the other driver.

--Slow down until the other driver comes to a stop, then continue through the intersection without stopping, even though the other driver had the right of way.

Not a day goes by that I don't fear for my life because some idiot can't be bothered to follow the most basic of driving instructions. It's not as complicated an instruction as, say, "Bridges may ice in cold weather" or "Watch for falling rocks" or even "Yield."

Another fun thing these Hoosiers seem to enjoy is pulling out onto the highway in front of me, no matter the fact that I am going anywhere from 60-65 miles an hour (alas the lack of interstates here!). Usually, I am able to just pull over into the other lane and go around them. Often, though, there is someone else in that lane and I have to hit the breaks and slow down to 20-30 to avoid hitting the moron who pulled out in front of me. Then I have to go around them and speed back up to my highway speed. This wastes my gas, pisses me off, and is also rather dangerous. Idiots! There is almost never anyone behind me... just WAIT for me to go by and THEN you may pull out safely! ARGH!

And there you have it, friends. My rant for the day.