Lately when I am driving with my 13-year old daughter in my truck, I’ve been explaining the rules of the road to her. But one thing I learned years ago is that the teaching doesn’t happen just when I want it to.
Some of the unintentional things I have taught her are:
It’s Okay When I Do It: When I am behind the wheel, in my mind I combine the comforting warm manner of Hoke from “Driving Miss Daisy” with the technical driving savvy of that dude in “The Transporter” and throw in a little bit of the kind of luck that Sandra Bullock had in “Speed.” In my eyes, everyone else on the road graduated from the Billy Joel School of Moronic Driving.
Know Your Colors: Many people speed through a yellow light right before it turns red and call it amber, but I floor it a split second between when the light changes from red to green and thus fly through a brown light.
It’s Better to Be Nurse Ratched than Darth Vader: I was an old school road rager who would tailgate, flash high beams and yell obscenities way back before they even had an alliterative name for the phenomenon. Then people started to get shot doing that stuff which convinced me to knock it off.
Now I choose the much safer (well, in terms of bullets) method of being passive aggressive. Techniques like performing a Synchronized Lane Change © with a car trying to pass you or trapping a car in a lane next to you by matching the speed of the vehicle in front of them like you are a Blue Angel in formation is still fulfilling.
One Mo’ Again: When going through a roundabout, I always take an extra lap and laugh maniacally with my tongue stuck out like Jim Carrey did in the “The Truman Show.”
Raider Right-of Way: If four vehicles come to a four way stop sign at the exact same time, the one with the Raider Nation license plate frame has the right-of-way.
Sound Off: I believe in leaning on my horn when necessary and the one in my Ford Ef One Fiddy is a loud blast that says “Hey buddy, how dare you steal the right-of-way from me!” When I drive my wife’s Prizm it doesn’t work because it s horn sounds as intimidating as a slightly amplified doorbell.
Always Wave: I don’t know who decided that showing your palm to someone who lets you cut into traffic means “thank you” but when drivers don’t do it I am tempted to give them a different gesture.
Bond, James Bond: When Kaci was a little kid, I had a Lincoln Continental that had a button in the glove compartment that opened the trunk. I told her that it was the button for the ejector seat like Agent 007’s Aston Martin had in “Goldfinger” and she believed me. One day I reached to press it and she was terrfified and I almost choked I laughed so hard.
Well, she no longer believes me as she is now13 , but I still treat my car as if it were a Q-modified Bond vehicle. If someone does something to irritate me, I press a button on my spy control panel (the radio) to initiate the oil slick, flamethrower or machine gun turrets. Yes, it’s a little juvenile but it’s better than road rage.
Self-Serving Speed Limit Activation Theory: I feel that if I approach a sign that reduces the speed limit, it only goes into effect the second I physically pass the sign. If I see a sign that raises the speed limit, however, it goes into effect as soon as I see the sign no matter how far way it is.. Please feel free to adopt this theory but In the spirit of full disclosure I must say that I haven’t tested it in front of a judge yet.
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Reach Fairfield freelance writer Tony Wade at kelvinsbrother@sbcglobal.net