For how tiny I am, there’s an impressively large amount of rage inside me when I drive. The disappointing thing is that I’ve taken a defensive driving class, but I’m still irritable when I’m on the road. That being said, I don’t consider myself a reckless or unsafe driver. I’ve got a ton of thoughts when I’m driving, especially if I’m going long distances. Most of them stem from my frustration with the decisions of other drivers on the road.
My first thought is that there should be a specified lane for semis, trucks, and other large vehicles on the interstate. The speed limit for those is usually at least five miles per hour below the speed limit for the other cars, so getting stuck behind a semi is often pretty frustrating. Most of the interstate accidents I hear about are caused by semis, so I have a healthy respect for them but also a slight fear of them.
Another thought I’ve had is that there should be different kinds of horns. There’s a bunch of obnoxious things people do on the road so I think there should be different honks for each one of them. For example, there could be honks that mean: “stop tailgating me”, “please drive faster/the speed limit”, “you left your blinker on”, and “you did something stupid/dangerous”. Realistically, I don’t honk at people when I drive because I don’t want to come off as too aggressive.
Something that’s not really a thought, but more of an annoyance is when people just hang out at a stoplight for a little while after it turns green. One of my friends actually took a video of me passive aggressively tapping my horn screaming “green means go!” I’m pretty impatient when I drive because I want to get wherever I need to go in a relatively quick time frame or because I’m late a lot so I end up trying to get somewhere faster than normal.
I could go on endlessly about what annoys me when I drive, but there’s just too many things to list. While I complain about being on the road a lot, I also genuinely enjoy taking little backroad drives to clear my head. Some of my best thinking happens when I’m behind the wheel. It’s the time I have by myself to listen to music, sing along, mull over my thoughts, and unwind. Of course, it’s only a pleasant thing when I’m not thinking about how other drivers can frustrate me.
