On the way home today, we saw a crazy-dangerous driver who has to have been in some way impaired. I was behind the other driver, so it was easy to keep enough distance that I wouldn’t have gotten wrecked in a worst-case scenario, but at one point I shouted “You’re going to DIE!” because the other driver kept wandering fully onto the other side of the yellow line, into oncoming traffic. And for the first time, someone was coming.
I don’t have a cell phone, so I couldn’t call the police, and I wasn’t close enough to get a license plate number or the make/model. I did flash my headlights repeatedly from where I was, although again, I was far enough back to make sure I wouldn’t die if the other driver did hit someone. And eventually the driver DID get back on the correct side of the road (far too close to that oncoming truck for my comfort, btw) and this time the driver did stay there.
Kiddo3 said, “Why is the driver going to die?”
I said, “Look at the way they’re driving!” Kiddo3 is eight, but even he knows how to stay on the correct side of the road.
The driver turned right when I was turning left, so there ends our encounter. What I found interesting, though was Kiddo3’s comment: “It would be weird if the driver was a woman.”
I said, “Why?”
He said, “Women don’t drive crazy.”
I kept fishing to get more of the story about him, because that kind of is an important thing to know. My Patient Husband is a careful driver, but his bus driver is also male, and if the bus driver is a total maniac, I’d like to pass along that information to the nice people who run the bus company.
No, it turns out that Kiddo3 had a different reason: “I figured I would drive all crazy, but I don’t know any girls who do crazy things.”
So there you have it. Kiddo3 has mastered the art of generalization. “I am a maniac. Cars are not toys. But if I drove a car, I would drive like a maniac, so I shouldn’t drive a car yet.”
We’ll see if this holds when he’s sixteen.
We were driving home at peak hour on a main road. We just crossed a major intersection and slowly stopped behind the 3 lanes of stalled traffic. We felt a bump and the car jerked forward. As we got out we saw a very puzzled young woman, about 20, in a small P-plated car. She was talking on her mobile phone. I inspected the point where the two cars had met. We have a tow ball at the back, so I was pleased to know that her bumper had suffered the most damage.
Women in cars will kill you not because they are being crazy, but just because they are doing something else.
I could say the same of the guy who rear-ended me while I was at a red light. 😉 Thinking about something other than driving his car.
Using a cell phone while driving is crazy.
Then we have the guy who was stopped at a red light — stopped long enough that a copy stopped behind him. The cop assured me I didn’t push the yellow. Besides, the guy was stopped and I was clearly in the intersection. The car would have been a write-off, except it was an Olympic edition. (I know I used the word “totaled” on the phone to insurance, yet I got a call three weeks later from the body shop wondering when the insurance company would send an appraiser. The insurance company thought it was a tiny scratch, no sense sending someone.)
Or the truck, I think one of those mature tree-delivery trucks with things on the front, that rear-ended me at a stop-light. I knew, watching in the mirror, that he wasn’t going to slow in time. Same car. Only damaged the trunk.
Or, when my brother was toodling around, killing time because he arrived early for his first job, his first real drive in his first car, and someone paid more attention to the map than the road. Absolutely totaled the car.
All those were in red Toyotas. We don’t buy them any more.
Drivers like that scare me, not just for themselves but because, if they have an accident, it likely will be with an innocent party. Glad you were OK! But I have to disagree with Kiddo #3 — sadly, while there are many exceptions I think in general women may be worse drivers than men… they think they can multitask effectively, and may not pay attention every second. But when guys are unsafe, it seems to be on steroids.
I’ve been hit three times while at the wheel. The first was at a stop light, the second while waiting in line at a gas station. The third was on the interstate – a woman in a white Toyota who had been (you guessed it) busy texting. She bent the license plate, but that was about it. But that crazy driver could have been busy texting or messing with the GPS or digging for her phone. The more electronic distractions we put into our cars, the more accidents we’re likely to have.
Glad you got away from that situation safely.