Hell is Other Drivers

I hope that Jean-Paul Sartre will forgive my paraphrasing of his title, but I generally like people, and it's only certain types who get my back up.  In this case, other drivers.  Specifically, drivers who wield their high-speed, ton-weight missiles of destruction without respect for the damage they can cause.

Now, I don't claim to be the best or safest driver out there.  I usually drive a bit over the speed limit, and I have been known to change lanes without signaling.  (Hey, in New England, signaling a lane change is considered divulging secrets to the enemy...)  But for some reason, I have noticed a particularly high rate of driving idiocy lately.  Maybe the arrival of Spring is messing with everyone's mind or something, but today was a particularly bad day, and I saw several head-shake-worthy events in the span of 30 minutes.

First was the woman in the SUV who approached the intersection where I was stopped from the perpendicular street just as the light turned green for me.  I started to pull forward, and she decided that "right on red after a full stop" meant it was okay to peel out (in an SUV!) to get in front of me before I crossed the remaining 25 feet of the intersection I was already moving through.  Luckily, I wasn't moving that fast yet and was able to tap the brakes and avoid a collision. (Although, my car *is* getting on in years and miles...)

Then came the guy who blew past me on 495 as if I were standing still when I was actually going about 80 miles per hour.  Now, being passed on the highway isn't all that unusual.  But, being passed at really high speed on the right-hand side as I'm changing into the center lane by a guy who is also moving into the center lane without signaling (see previous comment about divulging secrets to the enemy) after whipping around a panel van traveling in the center lane is a bit eyebrow-raising.  Luckily I wasn't further into the middle lane when he went flying past, or I might be in a hospital somewhere instead of writing this.

Lastly, there was the idiot backing up in the breakdown lane trying to get to the exit he just passed.  There was a lot of traffic on the highway, including people getting off at that exit every few seconds, and he was just blithely backing up as if he had all the right in the world to be traveling opposite the direction of traffic. On the highway.  Really?  Is it so hard to just continue down to the next exit and turn around, rather than doing the one thing every high school driver's education class clearly stresses you must NEVER EVER do? People like that cause stupid accidents that kill other people and then don't have the good grace to die in the accidents they cause.

Okay, I don't really wish anyone to die, but stupid, dangerous driving gets under my skin. I sometimes wish I were empowered as a secret, civilian traffic agent, so that I could pull people over, berate them and then write them tickets.  Hmmm, I wonder if I could pitch that to the state as an alternative revenue stream for them. I wonder what the certification process would be...