Left-laners put on notice…and other good news
DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBEBy Al Vinikour
It’s often said that there’s never any uplifting news anymore. I’m here to tell you that premise is wrong…WRONG, I say! A while back I reported on a story about a policeman in Illinois actually stopping someone for not using their turn signals, and in calling in the guy’s license plate it turned out that he was wanted on an outstanding warrant. I don’t recall the charge so for the sake of discussion let’s say it was for premeditated murder.
The other day I was watching television during working hours and saw a film report on one of our 50 states that has just begun to ticket drivers riding the left hand lane; and not just if they’re speeding, either. The driver can be doing 55 in a 55 and still be ticketed because according to the law he’s impeding traffic. This was tremendous news for those of us who mentally fire twin-.50 caliber machine guns at the miscreant who is hogging a lane he has no right to call his own.During the course of the report it was mentioned that there are only a handful of states – maybe nine, but it may have been six, that actually issue tickets to drivers laying claim to the left lane when there’s other traffic who want to pass. Doesn’t make any difference the speed the blocked drivers are going, either. They are entitled to use that far-left lane no matter how fast they’re going!
I recall several decades ago that the Indiana State Police decided to teach speeders on the Borman Expressway a lesson and a patrol cars was assigned to each of the three lanes. They set their cruise controls to 55 mph…and stayed at that speed from the Illinois-Indiana state line until the I-65 turnoff east of Gary. Traffic was backed up to the toll plaza almost 10 miles west. That was the second time that ploy was used on the Borman.
Years before that the feds dictated the national maximum speed limit be reduced to 55 mph. Long-haul truckers, in protest to this edict, did the same thing to illustrate how an unrealistic edict can foul an already-fluid system and under the guise of “saving fuel,” cost them a lot of time, which to them means “money.”
So I take off my hat and salute the pat
rolmen of whatever state the report highlighted (I believe it may have been Alabama or Mississippi – states that Michigan can truly emulate if it tries) for their sensible thinking. I don’t pretend to believe for one minute that someday this will be a 50-state sweep but one can hope. Maybe I’ll make this my Christmas wish this year when I go to Macy’s and see Santa Claus.
rolmen of whatever state the report highlighted (I believe it may have been Alabama or Mississippi – states that Michigan can truly emulate if it tries) for their sensible thinking. I don’t pretend to believe for one minute that someday this will be a 50-state sweep but one can hope. Maybe I’ll make this my Christmas wish this year when I go to Macy’s and see Santa Claus. Another event occurred this past week that deserves honorable mention. It seems that in San Diego, two teenagers were throwing rocks at passing vehicles. However, when they tried the same stunt with a passing SUV, the occupant took out a crossbow (isn’t every SUV equipped with weaponry?) and fired it at one of the 16-year-olds and hit him in the stomach. He was taken to the hospital where he was recovering from non-life-threatening wounds. The police were unable to pin down any specific information on the “battle wagon” so no arrests were made.
I couldn’t have written a more satisfying script for this act of attempted-murder by those punks. I was on a podcast the other evening and was asked what I would have done if some teenagers threw rocks at my car. After giving it a millisecond’s thought I said I had to admit that using a crossbow would never have entered my mind.
However, I definitely would have gone postal (and I’m just the guy to do it because I was a letter carrier for three full years). I would have emulated Arnold Schwarzenegger’s scene in the hit move Commando and put on camouflage, blackened my face with lamp oil, hooked up some hand grenades and K-Bar knives to my utility belt, parked my vehicle a few miles away and crawled on my belly to just above where those two miscreants were hiding.
Then, I would have let out a howl that would have scared the bejesus out of a banshee, rushed to their foxhole, knocked them over the head and removed their throwing hands. Of course I’m not completely heartless I would have torched the bleeding stump to cauterize the wound.
Then I would have used smelling salts to wake them up and when they saw what happened to them I would have crammed a 6-inch jalapeno sub down their throats, followed by their store of rocks. Let those little a-holes see how it feels to digest food like a crocodile. You live by the rock you die by the rock. Getting shot in the belly by a crossbow is just as dangerous as being hit by a rock.
You’re probably wondering what this tale of the crossbow incident has to do with left-lane hoarders. There’s a simple answer; nothing. But it is heartwarming to me because in my own mind I like to think that my columns are finally starting to make people think. So get your ass out of that left lane and make room for people who actually have a life.
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