Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Snow Driving Nitwits
What is it about snow that brings out the stupid in people. I won't say I've been immune to this myself. When I was a kid (and yes, there were cars back then) I did my share of crazy winter driving. However, in my defense, I'd like to say that was almost always on back country roads and I will say that there were never other people near by.
What brings this up is the newest nitwits on our block. They've moved into the house wreck rental that used to have the little girl who stole mail and their dog chained out in the sun in the backyard. This guy has a 4x4 - large American iron kind, not little SUV kind - and can't seem to drive it on the snow with less than pedal-to-the-metal. You can see the skid marks on the snow in front of our street where he consistently goes sideways to the next corner before powering into a U-turn. In the mornings around 0630 you can hear the steady rumble as he warms up his truck for 20-30 minutes.
This morning I was driving to work. We had a new snow last night; a couple of inches, so it's not too slick since it's 7F degrees and the snow was nice and dry. However this is on top of the other packed snow that's been there for a couple weeks now. (They don't do much in the way of plowing around my house.) I warned my wife that if she sees that idiot be very careful since he is in fact, an idiot. Sure enough, just as we started a right turn off to another road, you could hear his engine roar as he started sideways down the street - thankfully not the street we were on.
OK, now as much as I hate to wish ill will on people (ok, so that's a lie, I really love to wish ill will on lots of people who deserve it). I'm sure looking forward to seeing that 4x4 wrapped around a tree on our street. I'd rather a tree than a telephone pole, since I don't want to lose power - and I'd desire a tree rather than a neighbor's house, since it's really cold right now and I really do like many of my neighbors. However, on second thought, I'd gladly sacrifice a day's worth of electricity to see it. The results of this would make the street much quieter at 0630 (should I mention this is two hours before I usually wake?) and much safer in the long run, since sooner or later that idiot is going to run into someone else.
Labels: driving
