On Apr 24, 5:59 pm, saddlebag
aol.com> wrote:> P. Roehling wrote:
>> Just got back from a quick trip to visit a buddy who had his innards
>> rearranged by the V.A.'s finest surgeons last week, and who needed some
>> company.
>
>> As I entered I-10 westbound, I noticed an old red pickup go past in the slow
>> lane with a large innerspring and mattress taking up the entire bed of the
>> truck. Sure enough, just as I thought to myself "The dumb fuck didn't tie it
>> down!", the mattress caught the slipstream and went airborne, coming down
>> one lane to the left and draping itself across the hood and windshield of a
>> small blue sedan whose driver jerked his wheel to the left; promptly
>> impacted the center divider, and then rebounded into the side of another
>> pickup truck.
>
>> I slowed down fast, pulled all the way to the right edge of the onramp, and
>> was prepared to climb the unpaved verge if anything had ricocheted in my
>> direction, but the carnage remained to my left and I accelerated the heck
>> out of there watching tire smoke and zig-zagging cars in my mirrors.
>
>> Whew!
>
>> #2. On the way home I decided to take the canyon route instead of the
>> freeway (for obvious reasons) and along the way came up behind a young blood
>> in a hotted-up Honda Civic who was stuck behind a little old blue-haired
>> lady who was driving along at a safe and sane 27 MPH in a 55 zone.
>
>> Said youngblood didn't take this well, and pulled out to pass her on a blind
>> left-hand curve that proved to contain a large white SUV that was rapidly
>> coming the other way... The little old lady veered to the right, the
>> oncoming SUV veered to *his* right, and the Honda slipped right between them
>> with very little to spare on either side.
>
>> Because bikers have better lines of vision, I'd seen the SUV coming well
>> before the Honda's driver had, and had immediately hit my brakes and started
>> to look for escape routes, none of which became necessary; but there were
>> about three seconds of "SHITOHSHITOHSHIT!" before things resolved
>> themselves.
>
>> #3. As I got close to home I had begun to relax when I pulled up to a stop
>> sign a block from my street. At this particular intersection there is a
>> steep ivy-covered embankment on the right hand side which effectively cuts
>> off your vision of the street to the right, and since the drivers on that
>> street have no stop sign it's wise to ease out into the intersection very
>> cautiously.........but before I could start to move forward a teenaged girl
>> driving an old green clunker appeared from around the ivy; short-cutting a
>> left turn through the intersection at about 40 MPH and *in my lane*!
>
>> Had I not been all the way to the right side of the pavement she would have
>> tagged me for sure, and had I been driving a cage she would have whacked
>> into me head-on.
>
>> The kicker is that she had a tiny baby -presumably hers- strapped into a
>> child's seat right next to her (I got a good close look at the kid), and the
>> fact that she'd just about splattered somebody and endangered her child in
>> the process didn't seem to bother our young mother one iota. She just put
>> her foot down and kept right on going.
>
>> Some days you should just walk.
>
> I just keep hoping they'll all kill themselves while I'm asleep and I'll
> wake up to relatively traffic free roads consisting of only the few
> remaining conscientious drivers. A guy's gotta have a dream!
Less people would be handy....
