Just a short rant this week on minor irritations that drive me slightly nuts:
If you’re in the left turn lane, turn left. Don’t creep to the right first, just turn left! I really don’t want to trade paint with you when I’m driving straight ahead in the middle of my lane.
I’m still trying to figure out why folks turning left tend to drift to the right first. Do they think their vehicle is 500 feet long so they need to wider turn radius? You’re driving a Camry, not an aircraft carrier!If you pull into a parking space and you want to back up and straighten out, take a look around to see if someone may be walking behind you.
Yesterday I walked out of a store and was about to step off a curb when a Tesla (of course) whips into a parking space right where I was about to step. When I again started to step off the curb the driver suddenly backed up and would have hit me if I hadn’t hesitated, then moved forward, presumably to straighten out.
Once more I started to step behind the car and the driver again backed up a couple of feet. I waited a few seconds and noticed the driver was busily punching something into the touch screen on the dashboard.
I thought of tapping on the window and asking if they were done moving, but I didn’t want to get shot, so instead I moved about 10 feet down the sidewalk before stepping off the curb, in hopes that they wouldn’t back that up that far.
Sheesh!
Be aware that there are other people in the grocery store. If you need to read a nutrition label or choose between two similar items or something, don’t leave your cart parked diagonally across the aisle so nobody can get by, and be aware that other people may want to get to the item you are currently blocking while you’re overthinking your purchase.
This is not so much of a problem now that I’m not commuting, but I tend to leave a lot of space in front of me when on the freeway because I know my reflexes aren’t what they used to be, and at night I tend to get in the right lane and drive 55mph because my night vision isn’t all that great.
More than once, on a nearly empty road, I’ve had someone come barreling up behind me in the right lane, park on my back bumper and flash their lights at me.
Dude! I can’t move to the right, I’m as far over as I can get! In SoCal you usually have between 4 and 5 lanes on the left you can use to pass me, Use ‘em!
OK, I got that out of my system. I’ll be back next week, hopefully with something a little more profound, or at least a little less grumpy.
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