"The More You Drive, The Less Intelligent You Are"
--Repo Man
A collection of stupid and/or demented observations from drivers.
Contributions
welcomed. Carry a small digital camera and take the driver's picture if
you can.
All e-mails have been scrupulously transcribed and their oddities
of grammar, orthography, etc. lovingly preserved.
E-mail to RoW:
From: "lee blasman" jack2lee@quixnet.net
To: mail@rightofway.org
Subject: You must be suicidle [sic]
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 16:10:56 -0700
Stay the fuck off Stunt Road or die!
Driver behind me, going nuts as usual. Road widens, he passes, then
stops fifty feet ahead at the light. I breeze past, also as usual.
Driver [screaming]: "That's not a car!"
Me [admiringly]: "You don't miss a thing, do you?"
Drove him nuts. Very gratifying.
-- anonymously submitted
"I don't think it's unpatriotic to use so much gas. It's very patriotic. It's our way of
life. [T]he wacko environmental groups...
are forcing us to get oil someplace else."
-- Chevy Tahoe owner Sue Smith, of Wayne, NJ, quoted in the New York Times,
Nov. 23, 2001.
The following e-mail to our site, along with the usual size obsession,
exhibits a slightly odd animus against Miatas.
From: "Harold Grecia" hgrecia@yahoo.com
Subject: Simply Bigger
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 02:13:32 -0600
Just a short little note [....] If it's bigger than you, it has
the right of way. If I'm in my 6,000 lb Suburban, and a Mazda Miata
attempts to occupy the same piece of road that I'm on, I have the right
of way. The Miata driver would have to be a few cards short of a full
deck to not yield to a vehicle of that size. [....] Motor vehicles are bigger
than you. Please don't stand in front of them. You'll probably get hurt.
Besides, its a real inconvienience to have to polish blood off of chrome
bumpers.
From: "Alex M" boomer_134@hotmail.com
To: mail@rightofway.org
Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2001 21:00:36 -0800
Dont get me started about why cars dont suck. YOu only think that they do
because you are too fuckin cheap to buy one.
From: "Rick Aston" loyale4x4@hotmail.com
To: mail@righofway.org
Subject: umm yeah....
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 12:07:15 -0400
Ahh yes cars suck, do I sense and inferiority complex. I don't mind sharing
the road if you: 1. Go the speed limit (which is physically impossible most
of the time) 2. obey all traffic signals and 3. travel alone or in groups
smaller than twenty. But bikers never do any of these things, they travel
in huge groups blocking the whole lane doing 15 MPH, They blow through stop
signs, lights, and railroad crossings. I am a biker myself, but a mountain
biker. I stay away from the roads where CARS ONLY belong. Remember, cars
and larger, and the roads were built for them. cyclists came after, so stop
wearing you little spandex clothes, and putting yourself in the way of
automobiles. If your ever in Southern Maine and a Subaru pushes you off the
road. That is just me saying hello.
Me: 2 reflective legbands on each leg. One LED flashing light on each
leg; 1 Sam Browne
reflective strap with white flashing led on front of
helmet (which has Halo reflective band), 3 feet reflective strip on
panniers, reflective tyre sidewalls, reflectors on spokes and pedals.
Wearing orange overtrousers, yellow racing cape plus 4 other red
flashing leds on person. Driver sees me at last minute as he enters roundabout.
(UK highway code says give way to any vehicle
already on
roundabout.) Collision.
Him: "Where did you spring from?"
Me: "The Starship [sexually active] Enterprise"
Him: "Don't swear at me - it's bad manners"
--Mike Healey
Bradford Cycling Action Group (UK)
Driver makes a right turn in front of us. We
hit our brakes hard and swerve to avoid a collision.
Driver: "You should signal!"
Me: "But we weren't turning!"
Driver: "Well, you're not driving a car, you know!"
We later had
a good time imagining the various ways we could signal "going straight
here, boss, going straight" or "the universal signal for not left/not
right, etc."
"You
should be on the sidewalk! "
--Driver to cyclist, after a near right-hook
"You should wear a helmet! If you wore a helmet, I wouldn't
HAVE to drive more carefully!"
--Driver to cyclist, after being told to "drive more carefully"
From the Other Coast:
The fabulous Katherine Roberts was taking the lane as usual,
when a car tailgated her, honked, and then angrily zoomed
around her, passing much too close. She caught up with it
at the next light (of course). The driver insisted that she didn't belong in the lane. And why?
"Isn't it obvious? I'm in
my car, and you're on your legs!"
A friend later suggested the perfect rejoinder: "No, I'm on my
feet and you're on your ass!"
--Contributed by Jym Dyer
"You don't have a license plate.
You don't have any right to be here."
-- 30ish man in enormous
white SUV, to cyclist, Nov 17,
72d and Columbus.
"Take the bike lane, asshole!"
--Young man in expensive car, on West 72d Street, where there
is no bike lane
"Yeeew don't pay caaaaah inseuuurance! Get off the reeeewd!"
--Long Island Princess in BMW, with voice that could cut
granite, near Saks Fifth Avenue
Avenue A, guy in a 70-ish brown Buick: "If you want to
act like a car, you should get a
car," then floors it through a red light we were running together.
Next light, where (of course) I
caught up with him: "If you
want to run red lights, you should get a bike." Then I pass
him, never to be seen again.
--Contributed by Steve
O'Neill
Volvo with Jersey plates horn blasting me from
behind on East 65 St -- wants to pass
another driver on the right, through the space I was creating and riding in.
I pull over and let the irate driver
and passenger by. They roar forward 20 feet to [as usual -- ed.]
the stop light. As I ride by them
I can't help myself: "Don't blow your horn at bicyclists,
you scare them and it's dangerous". Driver screams,
"You're supposed to share the road."
This is the second time in 2 years a driver
has
mentioned this slogan to me. Something is being lost in translation. For them, sharing
simply means "get out of my way before I run you over."
--Contributed by Peter Hoff, November
2000
(Not exactly a driver story, but...)
Mad Av./30's: Taxi screeches to a halt, three doors fly open and four suits
pile out. Cyclist swerves, narrowly avoiding them, the door, other
traffic and death or serious bodily harm.
Cyclist: "You almost killed me- never open the door on
the street side. What's the matter with you?"
Passenger: "But I'm not even FROM here!"
--Contributed by Caryl Baron