DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour   

The other day I received an e-mail from a reader I’ll call “Rose Marie” (because that happens to be her name). She told me about her pet peeve — drivers who practically come to a complete stop before they make a turn.

My first thought was I’m being pressured from somebody who has more vile thoughts than I have but upon further reading I realized I can be the mouthpiece for this nice lady to the world through my weekly rant column.

Rose Marie raises a good point. I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve been happily cruising along in the right-hand lane of a major road (not a freeway) and thinking that life’s been good to me. All of a sudden the Buick in front of me puts on his brake lights and proceeds to immediately slow down to the speed of a Galapagos tortoise.

Not only that but the person seems to take two minutes and two seconds (as Chuck Woolery used to say on “The Dating Game”) to complete the turn, on average. It’s not just the elderly who take all day to make a turn. I’ve seen young people do the same thing.

I’ve heard of people taking vacations to climb mountains, camp out in the wilderness, volunteer building homes for Habitat for Humanity and other philanthropic work. But it’s amazing how many people seem to take a vacation to make a right-hand turn. I can understand this if the weather is inclement and the driver is faced with slippery roads, a Category 5 tornado or a hurricane was seen two blocks away.

Or the ultimate, Godzilla was spotted roaming the neighborhood. But to take as much time as it takes to bake a cherry pie (Billy Boy) to make a turn is expecting too much of drivers who are behind you.

I have often wished I had one of those monster trucks when I get stuck behind somebody making a “slower than molasses in January” turn because it wouldn’t make any difference how long it took those people to turn I’d just run over them like a train roaring through a crossing. Oh, sure, they’d probably perish under all that weight, but, hey what about all the possible heart attacks from the traffic jam of vehicles that have been so inconvenienced by a person giving an ant a head start to make a turn? We’re talking one or two people in a car versus maybe 10 cars full of people. It’s a no brainer (like the soon-to-be-squashed slowpoke is about to find out).   

Rose Marie also brought up that many of these people also fail to signal their turn and in heavy traffic she’s almost rear-ended these people. As everyone but Howdy Doody knows, you rear-end somebody and you’re at fault no matter the circumstances. To her I say, “Amen, Sister.”

Regular readers of my columns know my abhorrence to those who don’t even use turn signals to change lanes. I would recommend that anybody who causes misery to those behind them be hung from a tree using piano wire and their body covered in honey so that bears coming out of hibernation would think the caterers arrived during their winter’s sleep. And imagine what I would wish for that slow poke cretin if he did a wide right, endangering people in two lanes! Grrr!

Speaking of regular readers…I have a confession to make and it’s a painful one. Just because I advocate disemboweling people who give me problems while I’m trying to drive somewhere doesn’t mean I’m totally serious. It’s called “satire” and like Heinz Ketchup on steak I use a lot of it.

Haven’t all of you occasionally wished someone would suffer some kind of punishment because they either came close to hitting you or just plain made your life miserable for miles and miles? Well I don’t need that kind of distance to create mental revenge for a person like that, my mind is like a sick, perverted Polaroid camera – instant!!! While I enjoy hearing from readers I’d rather not get chastised by those who think I’m 100% certifiable. (Maybe 43%, certainly, but not 100%!)

I only ask this of my public…do not show my rants to children, and certainly don’t anonymously send them to the American Psychiatric Association’s hot line. It’s bad enough that I’m occasionally plucked from my car into an alien spacecraft to be examined. I do not want to suffer another anal probe.

Driving is a privilege — not a right — and if someone can’t play by the rules they shouldn’t be allowed to enter the game. These one-chance wonders are what brings out the twisted cruelty I call fantasies. Don’t worry about old Al, I’ll always find something to hate so I’ll never be without a column subject. I’ll give you readers something else to think about that will put some of you into a fetal position, sucking your thumbs and wetting your beds, I have an editor who sometimes tones down what I write. If it makes you feel better, even I scare myself sometimes.

Thanks for listening.