By Scott Tibbs, September 30, 2008
You're sitting at the traffic light, and the light turns green. The vehicles in front of you take a few seconds to move because the driver is not paying attention. This is probably my biggest pet peeve when I am driving.
This is easily fixed. If you're the first person in line at a red light, do not watch your light. Instead, watch the light for the other street. When that light turns yellow, you know your light will be turning green soon. If you are at the front of the line, it is your responsibility to pay attention to the light so you do not back up traffic. But that is simply annoying, not illegal and dangerous. I've observed three incidents in the last couple weeks where I had to wonder what the driver in front of me was thinking, or if he was thinking at all.
First, I am driving down College when I have to stop because a delivery vehicle for a local pizza place just stops right in the middle of the road. The driver gets out, leaves his car in the middle of the lane, and goes into Smallwood to deliver the pizza. Are you kidding me here? Why could you not go into the parking garage or stop on any other street but College? I almost got rear-ended because this selfish fool was blocking traffic. I am often irritated when the delivery trucks stop on Walnut or College, but they have very limited options as to where they can stop to make a delivery. There is absolutely no reason for a pizza delivery driver to stop in the street.
Earlier that week, I almost got t-boned because some fool was breaking the law. He was driving along the shoulder on 10th street because he was too much of a selfish, arrogant, egotistical, self-worshipping piece of human debris to actually wait his turn and go with traffic. As I was turning left, I did not expect him to be coming up alongside traffic. Why would I expect anyone to be driving on the shoulder? Then this fool actually had the audacity to look at me as if it was my fault that I nearly pulled in front of him!
Excuse me? How is this my fault? You are breaking the law! I do not expect you to even be there!
Yesterday, I watched a fool nearly get himself t-boned at Hillside and South Walnut racing to turn left to beat oncoming traffic – oncoming traffic that had the right of way. I waited until the light changed and it was safe to turn left, and when I got up to the first traffic light on Hillside I was sitting right behind him. That is right – he did not even save one second with his stupid, dangerous and morally depraved act. Not even one second!
Do you want to kill yourself, moron? Go for it. I really don't care. But you do not have the right to put other people's lives at risk with a stupid and dangerous stunt that did not even save you one single second of travel time. Recklessly putting other people's lives in danger to save a few seconds of travel time (which he failed to do) is a morally depraved act. This person should not even have a driver's license.
Driving in Bloomington, for the most part, is not difficult. It takes common sense, respect for the other people on the road, and respect for the rule of law. Unfortunately, it seems that far too many people have none of the above.
