This one didn't bother to signal before pulling in front of me. That one stopped at the end of a merge lane. The other one is driving forty kilometers an hour below the speed limit. He's texting and not looking at the road. She's waiting until the last second to stop and breaking really hard. They're not leaving proper following distance, overestimating the amount of time they have to turn in front of oncoming traffic, and slipping through icy intersections because they aren't driving according to road conditions.
Every day it's something. Hell, it's everything. There are so many ignorant, thoughtless, and inattentive drivers, all with a sense of entitlement, with whom I have to share the roads. As a New Year's resolution, I decided I was going to try and calm down when driving...in other words, when someone fucks up or does something disrespectful, I was going to just let it go instead of getting mad. I was going to try and stop complaining so much, particularly about other drivers. I have noticed a marked decrease in the amount of complaining I do, and for the most part I don't miss it. However, when it comes to motorists, it's the hardest habit I think I've ever attempted to break. I think that is because these are heavy, serious complaints.Bad driving behaviours can lead to serious consequences.
Rewind to yesterday afternoon. I was on my way along 6th Avenue NE. I had just turned left on to the road, and so I was driving at about 30km/h (working my way to the 50km/h limit). Roads were wet from all the melting and it was about 9 degrees Celsius. I was about one hundred feet from the intersection when suddenly a silver Mazda 3 bolted out of the alleyway to my right. I yanked my wheel left to try and avoid a collision, but he was coming out too fast and his car ended up blocking essentially the entire road. I closed my eyes and BAM!
My front right smashed into his front left. It was over as quickly as it began. My car was still movable, so I pulled it forward and parked it. His vehicle was no longer mobile so it ended up sitting across the intersection. I got out of the vehicle and there were several routes I could have taken to approach him. I could have yelled and screamed, I could have threaten him, or I could have attacked him. But that's not the kind of person I am. The first thing I did was ask him if he was okay. All he did was rub his neck and moan. Was he serious? Was he playing the injury card? It was his fucking fault and he was trying to set up his injury story? Fuck off, you stupid prick.
I then saw the back door of his vehicle open and a woman exited the car...WITH an infant carrier. Just great. I picked up my phone and I called 911. I didn't have any local police numbers and there was a chance that there was an injured baby. The driver asked me who I was calling and I told him. He seemed shocked. I told him that the baby might be hurt and I had to call. The police were quickly dispatched and arrived within about ten minutes. I told the cop what happened and filled out my report. However, the other driver began to piss and moan about how it wasn't his fault. Fortunately for me, the points of impact and the location of his vehicle pretty much told the story of what happened.
My front bumper is now torn and useless. Headlight cracked and broken. Hood and fender dented and scraped. Thus, a bad driver cracked me up...har har har.
My arm is strained and my neck and part of my back sore. I cannot drive my car and it's going to take my valuable time and effort to take it in for estimates and get it fixed. And I deserve none of it. I'm being punished because some stupid asshole couldn't be bothered to look both ways before exiting an alley, nor drive out of it at a slow reasonable pace. It's jackoffs like him that make me so angry when I see people engage in bad driving behaviours. Because once in a while, those behaviours cause problems, often more serious than what happened to me.
So next time you're driving and you don't use your turn signal when you should, or you're driving even a bit too fast for the road conditions, or you can't see who's coming, take a deep break and ask yourself what would Dave do? Perhaps if more people ask WWDD, there will be far fewer drivers on the road for me to complain about.
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