Bullies on the Road

I'm coming from the SFV yesterday down the 101 and I hit a patch of traffic around Hollywood.  It's stop and go and I'm intently listening to Petros & Money do their sports talk show. whenI hear this roar from behind and notice there is a motorcyclist on my driver side trying to creep between lanes.  I'm in the number 2 lane and I'm legally in my lane and not straddling the left edge.  Anyway, I immediately move the car to the right of the lane to give this guy a wider berth.  He was driving a motorcycle with a large fairing either a BMW or those big Hondas.  Anyway as he passes, this ass hat  punches my side view mirror and flips me the bird.  I was startled by the noise and had to flip my mirror back.  I was pissed.  If there wasn't traffic, I would have tried to follow and take down his license plate.  He could have broken my mirror.

In any case, I'm usually very cognizant of what's happening around me when I'm driving and if I see a motorcyclist, I will squeeze over a bit to give him more room to pass.  What I don't understand is why this particular A-hole thought he owned the road.  Does he go around slamming mirrors all day?  Was he just having a bad day?

Then, there's the aggressive driver.  You know the type-muscle car or SUV (typically a Suburban or Yukon/Tahoe) that just loves to punch the pedal when the light turns green or just comes up on your tail within inches in traffic only to brake because traffic is slowing. They weave back and forth and if all goes well, they get to their destination 5 minutes earlier than the normal driver.

I admit I'm no Speed Racer and sometimes my driving has been compared to "Driving Miss Daisy," but I'm not a horrible driver.  I obey all the rules and I rarely go over 80 mph unless it's on the way to Vegas.  I try to be safe because it's the right thing to do.  I don't text and I use my hands free device when I use my cell phone.  Why? Because it's the right thing to do.  I'm less concerned about my safety and more concerned of hitting someone and possibly injuring or killing a person.  Stuff happens and you don't need to be distracted to get into an accident.  Why swing the odds to favor an accident by practicing distracted driving.

This leads to the question, why do people do these things when they know it's either unsafe or illegal.

Let's take aggressive driving and that motorcyclist for example.  Do they believe they own the road and it's a sign of weakness not to drive hard and fast at the expense of safety? Possibly, but I also thing there's that bully mentality that extended from the playground to the freeway. The topic of bullying has been in the news recently and is being used by prosecutors and defense attorneys as an excuse for certain behaviors.

It's these A-holes bullies that will cut someone off only to watch the accident take place in their rear view mirror without an ounce of guilt that they may have caused it.  We all know these type of people.  They bitch about others. They don't understand personal accountability for their own actions and will justify everything until they actually believe their own BS.  Their time is more valuable than yours so FOAD.These are the entitled ones who believe their life on the road is a movie entitled Fast and Furious.

Then there's the texters.  Oh this kills me. (I sincerely hope this is not foreshadowing and someone mentions this blog if I died in an accident by a texter).  What is so f..n important that you need to respond to a text while driving.  Okay maybe if you're at a stop light, you might want to answer back but while driving??  Give me a break.  If it was that important, wouldn't that person have called so you can have a normal conversation.  People think that they are invincible.  Maybe for the adults that do it, it's their last bastion of civil disobedience.  Or maybe it's just plain selfishness.


I've got friends that drive aggressively and text on the phone and like the goody two shoes that I am, I'll make a comment.  I may even ask them to stop texting.  It's just the right thing to do...for my safety.

Funny thing is that if tables were turned and a road bully had an aggressive driver come up on their ass or a motorcyclist slammed their mirror or they saw a texter swerve into their lane, they'd be sitting here reading this and agreeing with every word. Go figure.