Confessions of a Careless Driver

I confess; I am a bad driver.

I do not have a good excuse.

There is no medical excuse. I don't have bad eyesight or a medical condition that interfers with correct operation of my vehicle. They wouldn't give me a special parking tag for the psychosis or the delusions.

I don't have a mechanical excuse.  I can't blame my car. I don't drive a beater that only turns left, has worn brakes, or that barely limps from gas station to gas station.

I can't blame my cargo. I do not have a vehicle filled with rambunctious children, my nagging mother-in-law or a dozen live turkeys.

I can't blame the weather. I live in Phoenix. The worst weather we have here is a dust storm. No ice. No snow. No tornados or hurricanes. Rain? Rain is a cause for everyone to skip work and play in the gutters.

No, my auto-navigation skills used to be whip-crack efficient, but as I've gotten older the routine commuting and traffic hassles have eroded my love of driving. The bloom is off. I am bored with driving and unrepentetant.

You may call these moves driving offenses. If you do, I will just turn the stereo up louder and ignore that gesture you're making.

Bad driving habits I confess to:

1. The pretty, colored lines they paint on the tarmac are only suggestions. If I linger somewhere around dead center of one of these lines, I have more speed options and more lane options.

2. Likewise, if I find the car in the lane next to me won't let me get over (even though I signal and signal), a sharp swerve away from and then toward their car will convince my fellow traveler that perhaps he or she should stay farther behind me. Thus opening up the coveted car-length I need to change lanes. It's almost magical.

3. "Stop" actually means roll up slowly, peek to see if there's a cop or oncoming car, then just proceed. No need to actually stop. That would be too inconvenient.

4. Those timing lights at the double-laned on ramp? If you're the only car rolling up on them, why do you have to stop? Oh, yeah, you don't.

5. Paying to park in the public parking lot is silly if your truck can roll over the curb at an angle. But that's a cute little booth they have there.

6. I see no need to drive with any other illumination than high-beams. There are many small critters and domestic animals wandering the neighborhood. Let's keep them safe.

7. Hey, not only is my truck big, but it's way bigger than you're little...unpronouncable foreign crap-box thingy. As an American who buys American, I'm entitled to 1 and 1/2 parking spaces. And that motorcycle sharing that 1/2 space better be a Harley.

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No self-sarcasm was spared in the writing of this posting.