A Rant

Morning boys and girls. I will skip the  humor today because this is going to be a rant. Have any of you noticed how bad drivers have been lately? I have been shocked at how careless and thoughtless drivers are whenever I go out. Yesterday I watched a tiny car that sounded like a lawn mower pass four cars at once on a double yellow, and the four were already going about ten over the speed limit. In the last four months I have seen three cars make a left turn on a red. Seriously guys?   Right on a red is legal (if nothing is coming-alot of jerks forget that part). How about turn signals? Just for fun a few weeks ago I counted how many cars I saw turn and how many used their signals. Know what the totals were? 37 turns. 20 used their signals. I live across the street from a small Christian school. One of the most dangerous times for me to try to get out of my driveway is when they are dropping their kids off in the morning. What I see is; 75% of the mothers are talking on their phones, a bit more than half use any turn signals and almost all are apparently very late for something far more important than being courteous and safe. How about someone in a parking lot blocking the entire aisle because they saw someone get in their car and they want that parking spot. No matter that there are 300 spots only a few spaces away. And if you live around me,and there are alot of Amish may I remind you of two things. They are driving horses, not the calmest and brightest of animals out there. Give them a bit of space and just because the buggy is in your lane and you have to slow down, it is NOT OK TO PASS IT WHEN THERE ARE CARS IN THE OTHER LANE!!!! One other Amish related rant- Amish taxis. Now I am all for the Amish hiring van drivers to take them shopping. It is far safer for them than dodging the crazy cars while in a buggy, but!!!   If you are a taxi driver and you have a handicap sticker, yes, it is legal for you to park in the handicap spots, but if you are not getting out and you are just going to take up one of the few handicapped spots and smoke your cigarettes while the able bodied amish are shopping, move for crying out loud and let someone who needs the space have it.
Now the reason for my rant today. I had to run to the grocery store. It's 15 minutes from my house. Sat at the stop sign on my corner waiting for a car to pass. At the last minute they turned, no signal of course. In town someone backed out in front of me, I had to slam the brakes. Got to the store and got my things. At the light waiting to pull out of the parking lot, my right turn signal on. The light turns green and I begin my turn and the woman across from me made a left turn while I was actually turning, cut me off, blew her horn at me and flicked me off. How dare I have the right of way and try to turn legally on my green light.  A bit further down the road I saw a van start to come over into my lane. I tapped my horn and when he continued into my lane I blew my horn more frantically. He did not so much as glance in my direction. He was driving around a puddle in the road. He never slowed or glanced in my direction as he made sure he did not splash water on his dirty, rusty 15 year old van while I did a frantic bit of maneuvering to avoid hitting the telephone pole and stay out of the ditch off the berm.  Made it back to my village and almost got rear ended when I slowed down to the village speed limit. That earned me a finger salute. Truck ahead of me pulling an extra long horse trailer ran the stop sign forcing two cars already on the road to come to a full stop.  When I slowed (with turn signals on) to make the turn down my road I was again almost rear ended by the same car that almost hit me before. This one ended with them skidding to a stop half off the road, That one earned me a blast of their horn and another salute. And the sad thing is, that kind of shopping trip is not unusual.
No more ranting now. I started to think about those people who don't put their shopping carts in the cart return. Now that R-E-A-L-L-Y makes me mad!