Driver’s Side Diatribe
By Al Vinikour  

I’m always delighted to hear from readers who let me know that I’m not the only one whose life is so filled with hatred it can’t be dealt with during a 24-hour day. I received one the other day from someone who commented that one of his biggest pet peeves is people who leave huge gaps between their vehicle and the one in front of them.

This is either done waiting at a stoplight, a rail crossing, waiting to turn left or just driving down a straight road.  I concur.

For instance, how many times have you been stuck in line because of a train and you watch many of the stuckees peel off, make a U-turn and head back the other way to go a different route that by-passes the tracks — maybe a mile or three down the road.

Meantime, the guy sitting in front of you stays there. In front of him are maybe six or more car lengths that are empty because of departing traffic. Granted, nobody is going anywhere until that damned train leaves the area but there’s no reason the person in front of you can’t pull up and at least compact the backed-up traffic.

To further compound things, let’s say the “dead man walking” in front of you stays there, and does so until the gates rise and traffic begins to move. I’m thinking of one particular set of tracks near my house that has a busy intersection immediately south of the tracks, and when traffic starts to move there’s a further build-up of traffic that wants to turn.

In the meantime, Mr. Molasses seems to have grown fond of the gap and continues to make sure it stays at that level. Consequently, his failure to move results in a minimum of 2-3 missed cycles of the stoplight — even with a left-turn signal. Then, as if to make the joy complete, when he finally gets to be in the number one position, and the green light for his lane goes on…he sits there like a big pimple on a warthog’s ass…and does so until the light turns yellow…at which time he finally moves forward enough to make it slowly through the light…thus ensuring nobody else does.

There’s such a thing as being cautious…and being suicidal. I’ll let fly with an unedited flurry of epithets that can only be heard by the voices in my head and anybody unlucky enough to be riding in the car with me. But the same can’t be said for some of the other people whose lives have been put on hold because of this vehicular turtle.

Sad to say, they may not be as accepting as I’ve let myself become to an obstructionist anal polyp making me miss the opening segment of Law & Order SVU. But there might be some people who have had a few-too-many spiked Yoo Hoos and are high on them and rancid Slim Jims and are totally unaccountable for their actions. They’re liable to be so incensed that they’ll chase this four-wheeled escargot down the street and when they catch him (which at his speed, a bicycle or scooter could accomplish the same feat) they’re going to run him off the road, shoot him or do things even more dangerous.

Even as sick as I am I can’t think of what that could be but I’m not hip with the mental state of a Mountain Dew drinker.

I’m not advocating moving up to play kissy-face with the rear bumper of the vehicle ahead of you every time there’s an opening of any kind. But use some common sense, people, even though you probably don’t have any. If there are two or more vehicle lengths that are open, move up and avoid stirring the anger of people behind you.

The same thing applies when waiting to turn at stoplights. When you have the green, even though you can’t immediately turn, at least pull up further into the intersection to enable a car of two behind you to make the turn on this light cycle as well. It’s not only courteous but keeps the traffic flowing better.

I don’t want to give you bowel-wrenching thoughts but as you sit there in your own private Hell while the gap between you and the vehicle in front of you gets larger and larger, there could be some potential serial killer who is becoming so frustrated by any kind of lack of movement that while waiting and building up his head of hatred-steam is using a honing stone to sharpen his Bowie knife that was handed down through the generations from his original Uncle Polix, who snuck out the back door of the Alamo as the Mexican Army was busting through the front gate.

On the way he pepper-sprayed an already-wounded Jim Bowie and stole his knife. This is the kind of people you could be surrounded by at traffic jams and backed-up intersections and your inability to identify them could cause the biggest gap of them all…the number of years you died earlier than your average lifespan.

I’d like to help you but chances are I’m probably field-stripping and cleaning the German Lugar my Uncle Barney lifted from Erwin Rommel when the Field Marshall was rubbing the sand out of his eyes at El Alamein.