Friday, November 28, 2008

Amateur Day


In the drinking community, the day before Thanksgiving is known as "amateur night". See, with a long weekend, relatives in town, that sort of thing, everyone decides that that is the night they are going to hit the local bar, pub or distillery. It's a mess. Lots of lightweights. People that don't know how to handle the whole binge drinking thing. Amateurs.
After driving around on Thanksgiving, to and from my parent's house about 45 minutes away, I would like to dub Thanksgiving "amateur day". No, not because people are drinking, but rather, people unaccustomed to driving are out on the interstates.
I have a commute of about 10 minutes every day, including 8 miles or so on a highway. Everyone on there understands how to do it. There are a few rules of the road that people who don't typically drive the highways with their families of 5 just didn't practice.
There are going to be people going faster than the speed limit. Almost everyone is going faster than the speed limit. Let the people going fast get in the left lane and get out of there way.
When cars are merging, let them in.
Check your mirrors.
Pay attention.
Pay attention.
Pay a-fricking-tention.

Most days, even with the traffic there was on the roads yesterday, it's not near suicide driving on a freeway, and you can get from point A to point B in a timely manner. In a two mile stretch, I wasn't allowed to merge into the exit lane; got stuck behind three cars going 63mph or less (speed limit 65) with an old couple drivind a caddy going the fastest; tried to pass a car, only to have that car try to change lanes (into me) 15 seconds later (good thing it was a three lane highway so I could get over... he never saw me. But if we had got in an accident it was all right because we were going so slow).

The moral of the story is this. Thanksgiving is such a tragic driving weekend because those driving simply don't know what they are dong. Christmas isn't so bad because people have more time off and can pace their drives. In any case, let's learn how to drive before we do so, hmm?

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