A Driver's Manifesto

Dear Seattle Drivers:

You win the award for being the most incompetent drivers in the world. And this is saying a lot, considering I have been a driver or passenger in some of the worst trafficked cities in the world - Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Boston, Washington D.C., London, Paris, Rome. You even rival the drivers on the Circle of Death in Lima, Peru. Actually, maybe not. Those drivers are pretty good, considering the traffic.

I especially love you Seattlites who see another car merging into your lane, either from a highway ramp or due to a construction lane closure, and speed up just enough to cause that car's driver to either gun the engine to get in front of you or slow way down in order to keep from hitting you. Like yesterday on I90. What you didn't realize is the dark shadow on the back of my van is not a glare from a rare sunbreak. It's a dent. It's one of the reasons I continue to nurse along my geriatric, 10 year old, 162,305 mile van. So that when amazing drivers like you decide to speed up just enough so that I either have to choose to hit the orange cones indicating the lane closure in front of me, or merge into and maybe hit you, I will choose the possibility of hitting you every time. Especially if you have a BMW, or an Acura or Lexus. That's half the fun of having an old car. And when you honk and finally move into the wide open lane next to you and drive past staring at me, like I'm the idiot who didn't pull off the road so you didn't have to speed up to tailgate me, I really wish I had a sign indicating the award I have just given you. Maybe I should make one. One that's okay for kids to see...