Oh my gods, don't even get me started.

I take driving very seriously. Not serious enough to know how to repair my car... not yet. Then I'll be a true driver/pilot worthy of his license. I say "pilot" because a driver is someone steering a team of horses pulling a coach. You sit behind the wheel of a car, you're piloting it as surely as if it were a plane or a boat. But this is just my own little quirk, I don't enforce it or even mention it to other people.

Currently I drive a '97 VW Golf. I prefer German automotives for their precision and reliability, though I've heard very good things about used Toyotas. I prefer stick-shift over automatic, because I think the automatic is born of even more laziness than necessitated the car in the first place. Yes, it's a difficult exercise in hand-foot coordination while you're learning it, but once it becomes second nature to you, driving is a delight. You really feel like the car is a suit of armor around you and you're implanted in the middle of the machinery. You become sensitive to every noise your car makes, the RPMs of the engine, to know when to shift, and this leaves you receptive to alerts when all's not well in the car but the idiot lights haven't gone on yet. To drive an automatic is to build yet another wall between you and your environment, to cut yourself off from a realm of experience and deaden yourself to external stimuli. It's like posing within a scene, wanting all the cred of being a driver but without the responsibility of fully commanding the vehicle. So I guess I'm a poseur to the extent that I couldn't repair my own vehicle. I can perform preventative maintenance on it up to a point, what with my military training and the various inspections I ran on my HMMWV (which I regarded with all the affection and respect due a loyal warhorse).

I drive with both hands on the wheel, or my right hand resting on the stick shift when I anticipate some action, frequent slowing-down or speeding-up. My hands are on the wheel in the 10-and-2 position, affording me the best control of the speeding vehicle. Laughable are the young jackasses with one hand on the wheel, leaning far back in their seats with the other hand cupping their chin like... okay. Make the International Children's Sign for a gun, with the palm facing you. Your index stretches to one side, your thumb in nearly the opposite direction: note the little shelf formed by the crook of your middle finger. Cup your chin into that with your thumb resting by the side of your mouth, your index finger reaching up to your cheekbone, and go look in the mirror. You look like the most pretentious mack-daddy-wannabe trying to put out the impression that you're contemplating something with all your world-weary cosmopolitan wherewithal. Instead, given that you're likely not even drinking age, you just look like an ass. And yet I've seen kids drive down the highway like this, like someone gave them a lateral puzzle right before they left the house and they're still mulling it over. Oh my GODS, they look like such fucking idiots.

Worse than that, though, are the jackasses who rest one wrist upon the top of the wheel and let their hand dangle freely. It's like driving's a hassle and they're only sitting in the driver's seat to make a good show; otherwise, they'd be stretched out in the flatbed catching some Z's. Or hell, they'd just let their truck drive around running errands, and they'd stay home to watch the game. But you know officers, always demanding that someone's driving the damn vehicle. I can't believe there isn't public outcry at this driving hazard. Someone who views driving as an inconvenience shouldn't be on the fucking road! The only thing lazier than driving is teleportation - and yes, even that will be too slow for some white trash motherfucker or yuppie piece of shit. The redneck has to make an emergency trip out to Wife Beater's for 2-for-1 Budweiser pitcher specials sooner than now; the yuppie has to arrive at the overpriced, pretentious scenester bistro sooner than he's leaving the house. The fate of the nation rests on it! If they can't buy watered-down sham-beer, or a lightly-moistened asparagus stalk arranged at an artistic angle on a plate for $57 with people he doesn't even like, the President himself will come down with Communist-cancer and all the planets will smash the holy fuck out of us. So get out of the way as they barrel through traffic 25 over the limit with their limp-wristed driving style!

And cell phones. Good and holy gods. I'm glad people can be pulled over for using them while driving. I'm glad that public speakers and TV shows and live bands ask people to not use a cell phone while driving. But we can only make so many laws to protect people from their own stupidity (and no matter how god-freakin'-many such laws there are in existence, in no way are there enough), it's still legal for assholes to chat merrily away on the phone while speeding up, drifting idly back because they're distracted by conversation, speeding up, drifting back; weaving between lanes (without signalling, because that hand's holding the phone) not because one actually wants the other lane, but because it's so hard to focus on a phone call with all this annoying driving serving as a distraction; and to completely look away from the road zipping beneath their chassis while they fumble with their thick sausage thumbs to push the tiny little numbers packed in closely together. I would so, so love to read the statistics of accidents involving drunk drivers compared to accidents involving some thoughtless asshole on a cell phone.

College princesses! Daddy bought them an expensive car, so that must mean they're good enough to drive it! Some bitch nearly rear-ended me at over 60mph because she wanted to drive that fast. Not necessarily in a hurry, just didn't want to slow down to the speed that every other fucking car on the highway was driving. After all, she was around 20 years old: she could be 47 by the time she gets home and her entire life would be over. Fuck, it almost ended at that moment. She was racing up behind me, weaving from lane to lane (again, without signaling), always speeding up to jockey for the next space between cars... you know, people create those spaces to create safe distances between them and the car ahead of them. When you fill that space, you fuck it up for yourself and at least two other individuals. But no, this day everyone was making those spaces so she could climb through traffic like a staircase. She raced up behind me and was looking for a spot in the right lane, and there was none, so she kept looking (without signaling, of course, since everyone can telepathically sense where the fuck she wants to go, so why bother giving anyone any indication or warning of her intentions? It's far wiser to just drive straight fucking into the side of another car) and when she snapped back she saw my brakelights. Traffic in front of me had stopped because people entering the city on 35W northbound tend to park right in the middle of the fucking highway, because the onramp to 94 westbound is so backed up. We came up to a string of cars, the vehicles ahead of me stopped abruptly, I slowed and stopped, and I looked in my rear-view mirror. She came up behind me, I saw her scream, she slammed on the brakes and very sensibly spun her car out in a slow, broad circle across the highway. Very sensibly, because slowing down to a reasonable speed is just out of the question, it's inconceivable. She has to fly at least 15 over the limit; anything slower, and she might as well get out and walk because her car has effectively parked. Well, she didn't hit me, but I wonder if anyone in three lanes of oncoming traffic smashed into her. Regardless, I'm sure she blamed me for the incident and hasn't altered her haphazard driving style in the least.

More on all of this later... by no means, am I done bitching about other people in traffic.