The Curmudgeon Speaks: Rewriting the Drivers' Manual

by Pamela Beers

Driving has become a sport I have discovered while maneuvering from country roads to city highways and back again. Because of that discovery, I think each state should re-write its driver’s manual.

There are several people I talk with on a daily basis who live in various parts of the country who agree that driving during rush hour traffic qualifies them for the Indianapolis 500. All states seem to have the same problem as 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. traffic become the most frustrating things imaginable, other than running out of toilet paper.

Full time residents of Florida complain about the “snowbirds”…the northern folks who spend summers north of the Mason-Dixon Line and then go to the warm, sunny south during the winter months. The “snowbirds” (SBs…not to be confused with S.O.B.s) make driving during rush hour traffic in southern Florida along I-95 seem as though you’re in a parking lot rather than on a major expressway.

As traffic slows to a crawl, it has been noted that full time resident drivers need to keep their eyes on women with blue hair and men with caps on their heads. It seems that the “blue hairs” and the “caps” are almost always 75 years plus and either have a lead foot as they try forging ahead through stalled traffic or they are the reason for the stalled traffic. In either case, the frustrated Florida resident (FR) who is on a time schedule due to full time job commitments, becomes a raving maniac as the retired SBs dawdle along with no concept of time. Then there are a few SBs who are in a hurry to get to the head of the line, managing to scrape the side of the FR’s brand new white Corvette. That is when the SBs become S.O.B.s.  

In the summer, the SBs are back. They flock north around April or May, which is about the time I notice a huge influx of traffic on our major highways. Living in upstate New York, I maneuver from country to city and back again with Mario Andretti finesse.

Driving into the city takes me across a complicated highway network called “The Can of Worms.” It is a four-lane highway that expands into nine lanes and converges back into four lanes with cars trying to cross over from the far right lane into the far left and vice versa. If I am in the middle three lanes, I floor it and say three “Hail Mary's,” at which point I can’t tell who is wearing a cap let alone the color of their hair.

By the time I get back to the country with its two-lane roads I am relieved that there are only a couple of cars on the road along with the familiar green and yellow color of a John Deere tractor driven by our local dairy farmer. He greets me with a very nice five-finger wave of the hand rather than the one-finger wave I just got from a harried commuter during rush hour traffic.

Interstate 95 in Florida and “The Can of Worms” in Rochester, New York have inspired me to come up with one very important addendum to each state’s drivers manual: No oneover the age of 75 allowed on highways between the hours of 6 a.m.– 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. – 6:30p.m. It would cut down on fender benders, and most importantly, would protect the hard working residents of both states from becoming psychotic with rage.

If the addendum goes through, there won’t be nearly as many quick starts and abrupt stops during rush hour traffic. And we won’t have to worry about running out of toilet paper.