What's Wrong With You People?!?

Driving. It's not a right, it's a honor! How many times as teens were we told that? It was pounded into our heads. We were told of the importance of careful driving. The importance of following the rules of the road. With a balled up fist we were warned to do the right thing, or else. And that was just from our driver's ed teachers.

So there we were, 16 years old, both hands on the wheel, the music at a moderate level, no distractions....for the first few days. Then it was all about how many people can squeeze into your car, learning how hard you had to press the pedal to beat that yellow light, learning not to tick certain people off with your driving. I did learn through the help of my friend Dana, that when you skip church to go to Burger King for an ice cream sundae, there's a price to pay. God gets even, and He does so in this fashion. If you were to say....oh I don't know...have your sundae fall over and you reach down, just out of reach of your finger tips to try and pick it up, and out of no where jumps a mailbox, and even more out of no where your friend has this ear piercing shrill of a scream (I seriously would have thought I hit a small child based on that scream) and you happen to kind of, slightly, bump the mailbox post, and that mail box would happen to go flying off and into the owners yard. For example. Not that that happened or anything. Anyway, so that's how the driving experience starts.

Fast forward a few years to being an adult driver, and the more I see, the more I cannot believe that the state we live in actually gives us this little card giving us permission to get behind a wheel. Now, I'm sure that you are aware of the different types of drivers out there....slow, over cautious, fast, out of control, PSYCHO! We all have been each of these things, but some of the stuff I saw today, literally made me say, on the comfort of my rad minivan,

"What's wrong with you people?"

And I still don't know exactly how the events happened, but they did. And I sat in wonder and amazement, because that was all I could do.

Imagine, if you will, a four way lighted intersection in the shape of a "t". Well, not like a keyboard "t" because as I look at it now, it really doesn't look like that, but like a "t" you would hand write. Ok. That's settled. Phew! Anyway, I am at the bottom of the "t", waiting for my light to change. Now, if I look to my right, there is a line of cars waiting for the green arrow to turn left. I will add here that it seemed like the lights were pretty long, but I noticed mixed in with the line of cars was a police SUV (you know, in case they have to go off-roading in Red Wing). So let's set this up.....

One car facing me (example C)
l
l
l
V


<------------- waiting to turn traffic(example B)
t r a f f i c (example A)------------------------------>

Me (example...I don't need one, I rock.)



Wow. That was a challenge to plot out in this blog. Ok, so example A decides that at a controlled intersection he will do a U-turn. Shame shame shame....that's illegal. But on top of it, he was towing a boat. Now keep in mind that sitting with the rest of the people in the example B area is a COP! Who does NOTHING! I would put money down that I would have the cherries a flashin' behind me if I had done that. Guaranteed. So I sat in my example I rock area, shaking my head, not really too excited about hings since that does happen all of the time in the state of Minnesota. What followed, blew me away. A mere 5 cars in front of the cop SUV is a person, who at that very moment, had what I imagined to be the following conversation.

"That's it! We have been sitting here for, what now? 2 minutes?!? And the light has not changed. I can see all the cars in example A have a green light, where the hell is ours? How can they expect us to sit here for so long, just waiting for the light to turn the color of snot?!? I have important places to go, and I cannot sit here any longer. Hold on Bertha, I'm gunning it, and I don't care that there is a cop back there. He should write a ticket for whoever controls the lights. This is insane! Here we go!"

Varooooooooooommmmmmm!!!!!

And there went example B. My mouth dropped open as I watched them run a red left turn arrow, without batting an eyelash. But what floored me even more was the fact that the cop, yet again, did NOTHING. Dude! They just ran a light! In front of you! Pretend to care. Make your siren go whoop whoop with warning, flash your headlights, shake your fist, do ANYTHING! Uphold the law, like you promised to do! Fight for what's right damn it, I know you would if I were the one running lights and do other naughty things!

And I watched in horror as the red light runner, slowly made their way up the hill and in the direction of Walmart. For someone who was so impatient they had to run a red light, they sure didn't drive very fast.

So it was at this point in time that I said, out loud, to no one, in my car,

"What's wrong with you people?"