Damn horn isn’t loud enough
Maybe it’s just compact cars, but did you ever think car horns aren’t loud enough?
Mine just doesn’t give a satisfying enough jolt to the other idiot driver. I want it to blare, hey, you ASSHOLE. Look what you just did! I almost died.Or at least scare the crap out of them.
Was coming back from work tonight and escaped an accident by inches. Some jackass was turning left but didn’t bother to wait for me to pass the intersection, where I had right of way.
Not only did I have right of way, but the idiot asshole (my affectionate term of road rage) was not using his turn signal. At a tricky intersection that also crosses railroad tracks. Cute. There’s nowhere else to veer except into that other car or the crossing arms.
Somehow, we both managed to veer. And then I angrily pounded on my horn. And pounded again as the driver confusedly turned very slowly, after I cleared the intersection, and didn’t appear to know where the hell he/she was going.
And I thought, that horn didn’t do nearly enough to convey my anger at almost being hit. Seriously. I saw the car coming toward me, and though I figured I wasn’t going to die, I was going to have a lot of mess to deal with. In my lovely car. Which I have another two and a half years of payments on. And I would be without immediate transportation. (And been meaning to get the rental and towing insurance for my car.)
Road rage is a real problem here in California, I understand. We had a rash of random freeway shootings in this area since I’ve been here. Another guy died after being shot several times on a freeway near Los Angeles the other day.
So I don’t seriously advocate pissing off other drivers, but….
How about a nice big bullhorn for when people screw up. Providing that you still have your wits about you after missing death by inches? And providing you don’t swerve into other people as you fumble for the bullhorn?
How about a big redneck horn? A truck horn?
Or do what one of my brother’s friends did several years ago. Hook up a PA system and yell at people. Sure recipe for death these days, but what the hell.
When I was younger, I used to dream of a changing, lighted sign that you could display for all idiot asshole drivers to see. You’d have several programmed responses, somehow easily accessible so you wouldn’t be distracted. Perhaps voice activated to correspond to the message.
Sometimes they’d be nice. Thanks for letting me in (even when the person didn’t want to.) Thanks for pulling over because you’re driving slow. Thanks for using your turn signal.
And then for the real idiots… hey, idiot asshole, nice use of your turn signal. Hey, idiot asshole, I almost died. Hey, idiot asshole, speed up, or pull off. Hey, idiot asshole, I’m driving slow for a reason. Hey, idiot asshole, I hope a cop pulls your ass over.
Unfortunately, this sort of sign would be a distraction to both drivers, and would probably be another recipe for road rage. I can always dream though.
And when that doesn’t work, I can resort to my weak little compact car horn, and during the day, combine that with the universal display of unhappiness.
I say screw the horns and mount a machine gun instead. Firing off a few rounds would undoubtedly make you feel better.
Terry Taylor’s got a song about California drivers called “Cowboys with Engines” (lyrics available at http://www.danielamos.com/tst/avocadofaultline/cowboyswithengines.html)
that put me in mind of you or, rather, that asshole driver who almost killed you. Glad you’re ok.
That’s funny.
You remind me of an incident yesterday while buying some groceries. I approached a short line for checkout with my meager basket of items hanging from my arm. And just as I neared the end of the queue (?), a woman appeared, pushing her cart between me and the counter. A bit shocked, having not encountered such outright rudeness so far in Be, I gasped out loud and complimented her, ‘Wow! That’s impressive.” Turning on my heel, I headed to another line nearby. The cashier in the woman’s line caught my eye, with a knowing look. A moment later, my cashier started talking to me in Flemish . After I admitted that I didn’t know Flemish, she commented on the incident. I smiled and said, “Well, I believe in karma.” (which is kinda true)
In such moments, I think how awful it must be to be that kind of person, whether full of anger all the time, or so miserable that in small moments kindness is impossible. Ugh. I try not to be that type, but I do honk horns when appropriate :).
That is shockingly rude, but you handled it well.
It reminds me of something that happened to me at Yosemite a couple of weeks ago. This man moved in front of me in a very long line winding through the store to put some things on the counter (four or five puddings and some other stuff), I thought, because they were unwieldly or heavy, so I smiled at him slightly, and stood aside. He thought I was inviting him in line. Or perhaps not. He kept looking back at me. He was very squirrely and jumpy. He kept picking putting his things on the counter, and then picking them up again. I don’t remember if he smelled like cigarette smoke, but he definitely had to be a smoker. And very wiry.
He separated me from my two friends, too.
They noticed, of course, but there was nothing they could do. Then he left line with an exclamation, so I moved up in line, and he came back and forced his way back in, looking back at me. Which was hard to do, because the old man behind me moved up too.
I was highly irritated, and I could tell the guy was kind of challenging me, and he kept looking at me as if waiting for me to say something.
I don’t like to be rude. I almost always reserve my public rudeness to people I know (and only then in jest), or to driving, so there’s less eye-to-eye confrontation.
You can always have you horn upgraded. In college, the horn on my old Toyota Tercel went kaplooey, and I had the garage replace it with a much better horn. It sounded like a pickup truck horn, very blatting. I’m not sure people realized that sound was coming from my little car, though. It wasn’t too expensive to replace. I had a lot of fun with that horn.
I agree with Dawn about the machine gun, but I’d go a step further and choose a TOW missle launcher mounted on my vehicle. You could have your passenger stand in the sun roof and send a nice anti-tank missle up the tailpipe of that slow driver in front of you. Chances are, it would also blow the blasted remains of their asshole idiot vehicle completely off the road as well.
I had someone almost kill me the other day. I was travelling up an Interstate entrance ramp and the person in front of me was so afraid of traffic on the Interstate, they slowed down to the point that safe merging for all of us behind them was impossible. I ended up cutting off a tractor and trailer in order to get over. Meanwhile, the asshole idiot who almost got me squashed was driving down the shoulder because they were too timid to get their vehicle up to speed.
I had to have the horn fixed in my old Saturn, but it was still under warranty, I think, so I didn’t get a chance to get it upgraded to one that sounded like business.
If people can’t drive on the freeway, they shouldn’t drive on the highway. Geeze.
I’m amused by the driving in central California. Southern Cali driving is just scary, but up here, people don’t have to drive as fast. A lot are farmers. A lot don’t give a fuck.
So you have two to three lanes of freeway traffic where the fastest car is usually weaving in and out of cars going 60-65 miles an hour.
There was this guy in a red camaro driving 65, tops, in the lefthand lane. I smoked him.
Should’ve been ashamed. I can understand driving slower in a red camaro because you’re a target for the cops. But drive in the middle or right lane if you’re going to go that slow, that’s all I’m saying.
And you do have people driving 50 on the freeway, in light traffic.
I don’t understand!