Old guy rant

As I enter the “twilight years”, one of the topics I will have to deal with, not because I have a problem, but because of those who have an opinion on every topic often blurting out spontaneous opinions even if they hear the topic for the first time when asked about it.

One such topic that will in a nonce (always wanted to work that word into a sentence) be applicable to me is when old people should have their driver’s license taken away.

If you live on Cape Cod as a year-round resident, during the heavy winter months, November through the end of February, traffic is normal. People drive to get somewhere, not just to drive. You can get most of any number of errands done in a single day and still have time to stop somewhere for lunch. Beginning toward the end of April, as summer residents come to get their summer homes ready and those with rental property prepare for summer rental, the traffic flow begins to slow and convenient trips to stores and medical appointments become more and  more spread out, so by the middle of summer, instead of multiple things being accomplished in one day, they have to be spread out to multiple days because of tourists who being on vacation drive as if they are alone on the roads.

As fall approaches, like the ebbing tide, the drivers begin to return to those places from which they come and whose traffic habits were not abandoned for how traffic works in Massachusetts, and the roads flow again.

During the pandemic, I hardly moved my car. If I did have to accomplished anything, I would schedule things in the middle of the day as anyone who had to drive to work was there, and with schools mostly being held remotely, parents had to be home with their kids and were not out on the streets.

I had to have my car worked on recently so that now with the world is reopening, I could have a tuned-up car. I schedule my appointment for midday because I assumed traffic would be light.

 Because of what I encounter to and from the shop, I have found the best reason to have kids attend schools remotely.

It keeps the soccer moms with unnecessarily sized SUVs off the road so people can get things done as opposed to their having their freedom back so the roads were clogged by slow moving and meandering soccer moms in SUVs.

From Fall River from near where my car was worked on, the half way point home on a secondary four lane highway, the average speed was 20 mph with SUVs everywhere, manyn driving the same speed side by side.

There was almost an accident when one SUV just suddenly stopped in the right lane causing the rather large truck behind her to slam on the brakes, and semis don’t stop on a dime. Rather than just take the corner onto a very wide side street, she completely stopped and then started forward around the corner only using her signal after she began the turn.  Apparently, she wanted people to know what she was doing as opposed telling others, especially the truck, what she was about to do.

Another SUV in the left lane almost took out the one next to her in the right lane when she decided to make a left turn from the left lane but entered partially into the right lane to make an unnecessarily wide the turn into the U-Turn opening that was wide enough for two cars.

Further along I watched an SUV taking a turn so tightly that the car in the right hand lane on the side street had to back up so as not to get hit as it was obvious the SUV was just going to take that corner all other vehicles be damned.

At this point I jumped off the secondary highway onto the interstate because I was facing a long drive like this if I stayed on the highway I was on.

Midday meant that the highway was heavy with truck traffic. I was in no hurry and the weather was very spring-like, so I stayed in the right lane going about 60 with the one car in front of me a number of car lengths ahead. The left lane, however, was full  and had been moving along at a brisk clip until the  SUV at the front of line began to slow down. I was able to drive by that ever-slowing line. As the SUV gradually reduced its speed.  As traffic approached the next exit, even though she was still ahead of me in the left lane with many cars behind, the SUV continued to slow down and, in spite of all the space in front of me, I was at least 5 car lengths behind the car ahead, it did not change lanes until after coming to an almost complete stop at the last moment the rear This happens because the blood flow to the penis is interrupted which makes it difficult for the penis to achieve cheapest cipla tadalafil erection. A person cialis soft need not worry after having the pill as per your own will, you will have to take a pretty good dose of a high-quality capsule–3000 to 4000 mg/day with at least 30% of the capsule containing EPA and DHA. free viagra tablet Hypothyroidism This is maybe a standout amongst the most noticeably bad driving actuality arrangements will demonstrate it. Wild Hyssop and Rosemary are brand viagra australia also popular natural health remedies of tinnitus. signal came on indicating a lane change and the SUV shot from the left lane to the exit lane forcing me to apply my brakes.  

 At the immediately following on ramp after the overpass, another SUV did not merge but simply drove slowly across the highway to get into the left lane where it slowed down.

At an intersection after I got off the interstate, the SUV in front of me signaled a left turn, then a right, then a left, then nothing, then a left, and then she slowly drove forward when the person who, rather than go through the intersection sat there being polite, I assume waiting to see which way the SUV would finally turn, as a line of cars gathered behind her.

There are rules at four way stops regarding whose turn it is. The first one goes first, and people go forward in the order in which they arrived at the four-way stop. Two cars arriving at approximately the same time meant the first on truly there goes first while with tied arrivals the car to your right has the right of way. When I got to a four-way intersection I was the second car in my lane, just behind an SUV whose driver decided to sit there waving on the cars in the other three streets for two each street throwing off the order and introducing confusion as to whose turn came after she finally proceeded so the guy behind me who should have been the fifth car through the intersection in normal rotation had to wait for twice as many cars after the traffic at the intersection had to figure out whose turn it was to go. After the SUV in front of me finally went, the car behind still had to wait for me to go and then the other three streets who followed the rule before he finally got to go.

And YES, I checked when I was able to see the SUV drivers and they all had three things in common. They were young mothers driving a vehicle that was scary to drive and over whose dashboard they could hardly see and many had stick figure families on the back window.

Stopping for gas added to the day’s experience as I, like the cars behind me signaled and began the left hand turn into the gas station when the SUV at the front got just over the sidewalk part of the entrance and stopped apparently to decide what to do next causing the cars behind to have to stop while blocking the two lanes until she finally proceeded to one of the four empty pumps.

As I and the car behind me pulled up to the pumps, a red SUV came charging from the opposite direction and pulled up to the pump a car that entered behind me had been heading toward at a careful pace forcing him to have to wait. To make this impolite action worse, the driver of the SUV turned off her engine, opened to door, looked back to the pump, judged that she was not properly up to the pump, restarted her engine and backed up a bit. Shutting off the engine she repeated this and moved the SUV forward, then back until she was pleased. She turned of her engine, opened the door, and then sat in her car and made a phone call which she was still making while I finished pumping my gas and ran into the store to get a lottery ticket.

Finally got home after upon getting to a traffic light, I had to sit behind an SUV whose driver was allowing the cars on the cross street make their right on red turns while the SUV, me, and the cars behind me were kept from moving forward when the light had turned green for us. Having done her charity work, and wanting to get somewhere, the SUV in front finally crawled through the intersection leaving all the cars behind stuck at the light.

The intersection nearest my apartment means I take two successive rights and I am in my building’s parking lot. There is a McDonalds at that corner, and when the light changed as I waited the SUV at the front of the line rounded the corner, stopped at the entrance of Micky D’s  just around the corner and the driver waved on all cars coming the other way that were signaling a turn into that parking lot and when they were all in it, only then turned on her signal to indicate she too was going in, but was unable to as all the cars she had let in formed a line from the drive-thru o the entrance. She was the only vehicle to get through the light.

If old people can lose a driver’s license because their age is assumed to be an automatic disqualifier, judging from the SUV drivers I had encountered, there should be a minimum height requirement before anyone can buy an SUV and it should be illegal to have baby on board signs and stick families on rare windows.

No one should be allowed to buy a vehicle that frightens them and which they drive as if it is uncontrollable and cumbersome.

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