Something’s going on. I’m not exactly sure what, since my observation is based on only two factors, but one of those factors is pretty definitive. What I believe is going on is that people are going crazy. The reason I believe this is their driving.
There seem to be just as many cars on the road today as before Covid, possibly more. And they’ve all got to get where they’re going PDQ. They are impatient, to say the least, if prevented from doing so. That they are prevented from doing so at nearly every turn (pardon the pun) makes for all kinds of frustration and acting out. This is when adults throw temper tantrums.
It happened to me this week, which is unusual since I count myself in the final group of that admonition to “lead, follow, or get out of the way.” I prefer to get out of the way and stay there, not wanting to enter the fray on the freeway, which is dominated by sharklike Hondas, extraterrestrial Teslas, and gluttonous pickups that loom large in the rearview mirror and swallow everything in their path.
This time, however, I couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. The car in question was either a small Subaru or Korean thing. I couldn’t tell which, but it had one of those slanted, pretzel-like emblems that I’ve never paid much attention to. I paid attention to this one, though, as it raced around me and took off at high speed. Apparently, this caused so much consternation on the part of the driver that some twenty miles later when he found himself directly behind me in an exit lane (so much for his racing), he couldn’t handle it.
He swerved his little black car from side to side at sharp angles, causing his entire car to bounce and whatever hung from his mirror to sway. This was in the midst of stop-and-go traffic all around us. He was like a bull stomping the dirt and snorting before charging me. I didn’t react. I exited the ramp calmly but kept an eye on him. He took a different lane on the exit and went on his not-so-merry way. He didn’t even bother to give me the finger, which surprised me. I like to think that the boxing stickers on the back of my car had something to do with it. Who knows?
This was my personal experience, which is to say that not everyone is coming undone. There are drivers, Prius owners mainly, who mosey along under the speed limit, which not only makes the undone drivers apoplectic but is actually dangerous. I don’t know if they do it for spite or because of unusually low metabolism, but they need to be removed from the freeway, also PDQ.
I mentioned two factors pointing to people being undone. The other has to do with shopping, but not in the way you may think. At the checkout stand this week I noticed two displays for self-repair eyeglass kits tucked in among the magazines, Kinder chocolate eggs, and beef jerky. Both were completely empty. This wasn’t the first time. I mentioned it to the clerk and asked why they were selling “like hotcakes” when everything else sat there, gathering dust like an old air conditioner. She looked at the displays, thought for a second, and said, “Interesting. I don’t know.”
Interesting, indeed. It tells me that people are spending less on optometry and more on gas as they race to their destinations. This trend will only intensify as people do their holiday shopping. The only hope for someone like me is that they use their repaired glasses to judge the distance between their front bumper and my trunk accurately. I’ve always wondered how some cars in my rear can get so close that they arrive at the traffic light ahead of me. I see now it’s all done with optics.
Sure, you can insist that correlation isn’t causation and that I’m mixing apples and pomegranates. But what I will tell you is that there is something going on. Black bulls are all around, stomping the dirt and snorting so they can get ahead. Think of Wall Street. Better to be prepared. And, like something out of Ovid, eventually that bull will be you. Then what will you do?
All I’m asking is that you give the guy in front of you a chance to move over.
Image credits: feature by Getty; bull by Tim Schmidbauer. Want more? Go to Robert Brancatelli. The Brancatelli Blog is a member of The Free Media Alliance, which promotes “alternatives to software, culture, and hardware monopolies.”
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Your take on road speed (and rage) is spot on, Robert. Although these driving habits have always been with us to some degree, I noticed a huge increase in speed when we came out of the pandemic lockdowns.
These lockdowns damaged our society in ways too numerous to count, and you can almost see the pent up anger in the faces of the drivers as they speed by at hypersonic levels.
I know a guy who always checks “zero” at the kiosk when asking how many paper shopping bags he is using (which is not zero). Another at the local convenience store checks the coffee price which applies to using his own cup, although he doesn’t.
These last are small examples of how we have changed to a more dishonest society. The speeding is simply that the speeder’s time is more valuable than mine, and his anger needs to be vented where everyone can see it.
I have been sober for 29 years now. I tell you, if I get killed by a speeding drunk driver, I’m really going to be pissed.
Got it. Pretty funny, Vic, although I have to say the stores are the dishonest ones. Come on, charging me for a bag to carry out the items I’ve already overspent on…?!? They should be ashamed of themselves. Imagine telling someone years ago that they’d be charging for paper bags (or plastic)…
I think there is a decline in the quality of people’s outward behavior and it reflects a decline in their interior state and many metrics (I don’t know about optometry sales) reflect that. The lockdown was a cause, a loss of social connections to screen based existence, social media amping collective psychosis on the left and right (see: https://zaporacle.com/mass-psychosis-on-the-left-and-right/) are all contributing to this multi-factorial and over-determined decline that many of us are seeing and that is reflected in rising suicide rates, etc. We also see it in the right track/ wrong track stats which may reflect people’s feeling that their own lives are on a wrong track as much as they reflect feelings about the nation. Most Halloweens since 1995, I’ve walked Pearl Street In Boulder the night of to take photos of people in creative costumes, etc. This year I was shocked to see so many few people out than I’ve ever seen and those that were, had uncreative thrown together or entirely store bought costumes. I interpreted this lack of exuberance as a sign of this general decline.
Interesting story about the Halloween costumes. Yes, that’s another factor. You must have some great photos. Thanks, Jonathan.