To All the Drivers Who Own Our Roads

“It’s what they teach you in New Jersey. It’s called Defensive Driving, which turns into being assertive driving, which turns into being a dick!”

I was conversing with a friend of mine yesterday evening about how repulsive and uppity some drivers are, and if you aren’t scanning through this post like a newspaper article, you will know what she said.

As a person who has driven on both the east- and west-coast of the States, as well as on the tax-infested South African roads, I have come across a numerous amount of these drivers. Taxi drivers in South Africa own the roads. There is no question about that. Anyone who has seen these drivers before taking the written/theory test will know to mentally alter the written rules when actually driving, in order to accommodate the road users. We yield to them no matter what. Or else all three of the taxis, spread out in front of you, will cut in front of you to get to the one person standing on the side of the road waiting for a friend. They will fill their dusty 15-seater combi-styled vans with 25 people and crawl in the fast lane. They will make that left turn over the curb just to pass the two cars in front of them (remember South Africa keeps left and passes right). Or simply curse you out for following traffic laws.

In the west-coast, driver are chill. Friendly, would be more accurate a term. Granted that they, like most people, get agitated when their patience is tried, as is the case for those of us who have experienced Seattle’s downtown gridlock and/or bottlenecks. The east-coast is plain vicious. Especially the female drivers. They aggressively maneuver their Stupid Urban Vehicles, take unnecessarily wide corners, and edge their noses (slowly, to my surprise) for left turns onto oncoming traffic. They later teach these unsavoury driving techniques to their Lexus-driving, sixteen year-old children who think they actually know what they are doing.

However, the creme-de-la-creme, the superlatives, are the ones who drive doing revolting things because they think nobody is looking, and those who are obnoxious in their cars but timid after they park them. I have one dedication to all terrible drivers. She sings it charmingly, but listen twice. Once to enjoy the song, and secondly, to what other road-users want to say.

Here is Lily Allen’s F**k You

Are we all in agreement polite and decent drivers?

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