i spend my winters in new jersey and summer in newport ri. im not that guy, im just lucky enough to have a 6 month job in each location.
well, its getting close to the time when i pack my bags and go back to newport and i was doing a little thinking during my commute this morning with regard to driving styles.
in new jersey, brake tapping is a freaking sport. this would be defined as 30 cars traveling at 80+mph and separated from each other by 4 feet at most. one person will take it upon him/herself to tap the brakes for no apparent reason at all, and with out the consent of the group, causing consternation in 29 people. this will cause 29 ppl to also tap the brakes bcz we all dont know if there is an accident ahead, a cop laying in wait, traffic conditions, ect....
when we have all determined that the perpetrator was some teenager or blue hair that was concerned they were going too fast and just wanted to slow it down, the horns start, the fingers pop up in salutation, and the tailgating starts in earnest ( 4 ft is not as close as you can get )
this situation becomes exponentially more dangerous when there are minivans involved.
some quick facts about minivans:
they are owned by:
- married men who have given up being men for the convienence of taking all of little billy's friends to baseball games, loaning it to his wife for grocery shopping, or own small businesses designed around the theme of, it really doesnt matter when i get there...
- women who have to drop the litter off at day care before she rushes off to work with lipstick in one hand, coffee in the other, using one knee to steer, and one shoulder to hold the cell phone while she calls the boss to explain why she will be late once again. all this while paying at least a thousand a month for day care and netting 1600. the economics of this? you got me too!
- retirees who think they are cool
- teenagers who were given the old family minivan as the "first car"
some more facts:
- they look like crap
- they are not meant to be driven at 80+
- you cannot see a damn thing when you are behind one
- for all the freakin' glass they have, the drivers still have blind spots a tractor trailer could drive through
- not to be confused with suv's driven by women so small that you cant even see them in the drivers seat. this would include, but not limited to, denalis, escalades, yukons, hummers. this is another group entirely which would demand another post to fully do them justice.
now that we all have a basic understanding of the properties of minivans, i shall continue.
they suck! the ppl who own/drive them suck! the ppl who designed them should be shot! the ppl who sell them should be stoned in a public gathering place. ( bcz you know they are laughing thier asses off that they just sold you one, sucker )
whew! now that im done with that intellectual reasoning exercise, i'll move on to even more broad stroke generalizations.
there is a function that the closer you get to a minivan, the slower it will go, just to piss you the hell off. i often think of a steve jackson rpg i used to play as a child during times like these. it was called car wars. in the game you designed and built cars with weapons for the sole purpose of destroying other cars. i often daydrean that i had a turret on my passat and twin 50 cal's in the grill. i would hunt minivans like elmer fudd hunted wabbits. uh, perhaps with better results.
well that is the new jersey side of it. it really takes me a week or so just to get my skills up to speed every winter when i come home to nj. you can get yourself killed on these highways.
in newport - which i am so looking forward to going back to, as much as i love it here. i live 2 blocks off the ocean. i have sand in my parking lot. the girls wear half of nothing for 4 months and then only half of something for 2 months. booze flows heavy, and tanning and rollerblading become my 2 full time pursuits. - driving is way different. the town is small to begin with, but when all the massholes ( massachusetts drivers with the previously mentioned yukons, denalis, ect... ) conneticut yankees, and new york ppl, who always are arrogant as hell, and think you're some local half - wit when you encounter them, descend on newport in droves, you might as well walk everywhere. they clog the damn streets and lean on the horns like they know where they are going.
im very much looking forward to it
man, summers coming, pour me a freakin' drink!!!!