I’m surely not even the millionth person to make note of this phenomena, but drivers are getting worse and it’s very much the sorts of drivers you’d expect to be the culprits.
Let me tell you a humorous story about getting sideswiped not once but twice in less than week by ditzy women driving bottom of the barrel vehicles. Meanwhile I was in a decent sized higher end SUV which very much helped. Imagine the culprits driving a Golf or a Peugeot.
Now to preserve some privacy for all involved this did not happen in America but in Europe and the timing is being buffered. To protect the not at all innocent.
The first instance was (and I swear I’m not making this up) while I was helping a family member with the equivalent of a trip to the department of motor vehicles.
Turning into a parking space in their lot, a middle aged woman (who was not paying attention) backed out and scraped two feet down the right side of the vehicle. She stopped and gave the impression of us waiting to park. As soon as we settled she immediately scattered. So much for her stopping.
Fortunately a worker at the bureau saw it and knew that the driver was employed there which made sorting it feasible. She gave over her insurance and the paint easily buffed out the scratch. She didn’t act at all embarrassed for having clearly been caught.
Then forty eight hours later another near miss by a ditzy Zoomer got us. We were making a slow left turn to merge into a larger road. We’d already crossed the yellow line with just half the front of the car into the new lane. As one does when politely coming into a left turn.
Just as we began to accelerate into the lane having slowed traffic in then opposite lane, a cheap car continued barreling 20 over the speed limit without so much as an attempt to slow to let us finish the turn.
She clipped onto our bumper and tore into her own driver side door. It was not a pretty Boise. She attempted to keep going as every other witness on the city road tried to get her attention to stop her.
Finally some fifty feet later dhe slowed down once she realized she took damage and everyone was snapping pictures. We were able to call the police and exchange information.
In a final act of sneakiness, she tried to call a policeman that was in her family to plead her case. Him being nearby maybe she was thinking he’d help her out. Amusingly this backfired against her as it was pretty clear she was at fault and she accepted responsibility. She’d done more damage to her car than to ours.
It’s little wonder everyone is on edge about being on city roads as irresponsible drivers seem to be absolutely everywhere and rules of the road are mere suggestion. Don’t be a knucklehead is the moral of the story.
