Thursday, January 7, 2010

Bring Your Pet Peeve to Work Day...

Close your eyes...imagine, for a minute, you're following a car at a reasonable speed...not to fast...not too slow.

Then, all of a sudden, the car decides to make a turn...let's say...to the right.

Out of the blue. No warning...nothing. No blinker. Nada.

Just a turn...

...and it is that sort of thing that drives (no pun intended) me nuts!

I don't care about whether or not the seat is up or down or someone left an empty juice bottle in the refrigerator...

But TURN SIGNALS...JEEZ...C'MON!!!

I remember once, when I was living in San Francisco, and I was riding a motorcycle (a Kawasaki 1000 with a full fairing...burgundy color...what a bike to cruise the PCH and to go up to Sonoma and the Russian River...or down to Santa Cruz...ooooooh!) and I was following some guy up Army Street (now Cesar Chavez Way for those who are lost and looking for Army Street...) and we were crossing Dolores and he changed lanes and nearly made me dump the bike.

Man, was I pissed...not road rage pissed but pissed just the same.

I pulled up next to him and flagged him over. I was wearing a big wrap-around white helmet so he must have thought I was a cop so he stopped right away.

I got off the bike and came up to his window and asked him if his directional signal was broken.
He looked at me with a perplexed look and then got it. I told him that he had almost hit me and asked if he could please use his turn signal when...turning. He sheepishly agreed to do so as though I held some power other than the moral power I was exerting. I guess I shamed him into being apologetic.

I hope he used his blinkers from then on and that he didn't actually kill someone, on a bike or not, because of his negligence.

I don't mean to preach, but it just annoys the crap out of me when people don't signal their intentions. It doesn't take much, a simple flick of the wrist. They teach it to you in driving school.

Are people that lazy? Maybe the car companies could make the car do it automatically...hooked up wirelessly to your brain so when, and if, you think about turning, the signal goes on automatically.

But that might be complicated because the car might to other things when you think of them...like jumping up and down if you see a pretty girl or going really fast when you think about stopping for a piece of chocolate.

It could get out of hand.

But for now, maybe folks could just use their directional signals when intending a turn...in either direction.

I forget the comic who said it...maybe Jack Benny or Myron Cohen...when recalling following a lazy driver:

"For miles you've signalled a turn to the right. Please turn off the road, or your light."

That would only be funny if they were following someone who had forgotten to turn off their signal...not forgotten to USE THE DAMN THING IN THE FIRST PLACE!

"Just a warning this time buddy...next time I'm writin' you up...!"

Have a nice day.

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