I won't pretend to believe I'm the best driver in the entire state. That would be narcissistic and, well, most likely incorrect. I was 19 with a 5-speed V6 mustang once, which led me to erroneously believe I was solely entitled to the left lane. After 8 years of driving in two states though, 2.5 of which years I have been transporting a little human strapped into an incredibly confusing seat that's supposed to cushion her soft little waterhead and absorb any shock that some asshole in a primered civic might cause, I learned that I might not have been the only person on the road with a destination at which I intended on arriving.
And at some point in those 8 years is when I realized that not many people have had this same epiphany.
The following are some basic traffic guidelines that I feel aren't given the necessary amount of attention in accordance to the law & my patience level when you're coming dangerously close to sending me over a proverbial (and, in one particular instance, literal) ledge.
And let me preface all of this by admitting that while I'm abrupt & opinionated, I'm also an extreeeeemely considerate driver (extra e's added for obnoxious emphasis because i reeeeally mean this). I'll stop traffic no matter how big of a rush I'm in, and as long as it's safe to do so and i'm not in danger of someone slamming into my bumper, to make sure someone can get in; I don't block driveways; I move up when people need me to; I stop at yellow lights so that oncoming traffic can make their left turn before they get stuck in the intersection on red, etc. etc. While I may not be the best driver, I might be the nicest. With that being said...
The Left Lane is a straight-away used to avoid old people, asian people, old asian people, and New Yorkers. This is not a Sunday driving lane used to admire the beautifully scenic median to your left on 295 being landscaped & trash-picked by inmates & 16 year olds on their last hours of community service for getting busted with paraphernalia. If you see someone fast approaching behind you, they're not speeding up to read your "I LOVE MY YORKIE" bumper sticker up close, old man. They're using the lane for its intended purpose and while they're probably wondering what you're doing in that lane to begin with since you're driving at a moped's max mph, they're more than likely wondering when you're getting over. If there's no one to the right of you, or no one on the road at all for that matter: Right hand turn signal, check your mirrors, GTFO. If 3 people have passed you on the right and you still haven't gotten the hint (which I'm willing to say I see twice a week at the very least), you need to go back to Pennsylvania and consider staying there, because 9 times out of 10 that's exactly where you're from. There's a bus that will take you to the shore, google it.
Navigating your car in a parking lot safely is a LOT easier when you buy a car you can navigate. Sounds pretty self-explanatory and redundant, doesn't it? Not if you're a self-entitled bitch with your husband's checkbook at your disposal and a hankerin' for a gas-guzzling behemoth. If it takes you more than 2 minutes to back out of and drive away from a parking spot in the mall because the entire perimeter of your H1 is a ginormous blind spot, maybe you should have thought about something other than yourself, like the planet, and bought a hybrid whose steering wheel you don't have to see over with the aid of 3 phone books under your ass. If you can't drive it, leave it in your driveway where it can still superficially represent how awesome you are, and stay out of parking lots.
Turn Signals are courteous ways of letting you know that I intend on entering your lane. They are not warning signals that require you to speed up because, apparently, that's YOUR lane & driving with someone in front of you would just ruin your entire driving experience that day. If you were way back yonder before I even thought about getting over, why is it suddenly so necessary for you to be way up here now that I kinda need to be in this lane? Turn signals & accelerators are seldom used together. I think this story bears mentioning for this particular guideline. This exact circumstance happened to us one day while trying to merge right and get off an upcoming exit in PA. The old woman, who immediately needed to be up my ass once I got in her right hand lane, abruptly got to my left, sped up, flipped her long, arthritic, dinosaur fossil of a middle finger in the air and called me a cunt. I'm imaginative, but there's no way in hell I could have possibly made that up on my own. This is prevalent in PA (the driving thing, not the middle-finger-cunt thing), as anyone who drives 476 or, god forbid, 76 will tell you.
If you're sitting at the front of the line of people desperately waiting for the upcoming 3-second-long green arrow, please, at the very least, recognize that there are people behind you. Texting, tantrums coming from the back seat, and applying your mascara could wait a few minutes, couldn't they? You're not the only person trying to get through this light and avoid sitting at the same red arrow for another 10 minutes. Proceeding through the light at the pace of a snail on a salt bed is irritating & rude. Just fucking go.
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