Tag: driving

Decline in driving skills

Griz

As I do all of the errands for the household I spend a fair amount of time behind the wheel. With 30+ years of driving experience including some time holding a CDL, I have seen some miles.

Over the last few years, I have noticed a tremendous drop in a) driving skills and b)good natured drivers.

Some blame the pandemic, but this goes before the pandemic. I will say that it has gotten much worse since then though.

As the millennials took to the road there seemed to be a certain entitlement that was introduced.

People have last the desire or ability to maintain their lane in a turn. Taking the next lane over is chronic, enough so that nobody can trust them to turn at the same time when there are two lanes.

Drivers are having issues trying to maintain an arc so that they end up either driving over the oncoming turn lane, or they drive almost at a diagonal having to cut hard left to complete the turn without wiping out into the curb.

Granted I am in Washington and our legislature has gutted the law enforcement community so that they can barely police the community. The drive appear to be leveraging that to their advantage and it is bleeding over into general lawlessness.

I used to love getting out and driving. Now… I am an emotionally controlled violent man. I am quite patient, but let’s get this straight, I value animal life far more than human life. So… if you succeed in really pushing my button enough to snap, my veteran ass will likely not feel guilt for killing you. Accidents happen… I will not intend to go that far, but when I red-out, shit happens.

I also view road-rage as a social correction.

Police Debate

Griz

We have a ton of debate to defund the police, or disband the police, some support the police…

Me, I support the police until the individual officers do something that proves that they are not worthy of the badge. Qualified immunity needs to go. We are held accountable for what we do, they should be held accountable too.

Now, we are starting to get a push to get the police to not perform traffic stops because a nit wit got confused and shot a guy who was trying to escape.

Sorry dude, but you are dead because you were stupid. Do not fight with the cops. Do not try to run from that fight either. Fatal stupidity. Yes, he was barely an adult and he will not learn from the mistake. Should he have been shot? No, the intended tasing should have been sufficient. Does it rise to the level of the charges that the cop got? hard to say, I will leave that one to the jury to decide.

Our police departments are partially to blame for what is happening to society. The people out running around are acting as though there are no consequences for their actions. When I first got my license, I got popped for speeding on my way to work. Yes I was in a hurry. Yes, I was going too fast. You know what? It made my more mindful of my speeds. I have only had a few speeding tickets in my life and one of them I very MUCH earned.

Watch the drivers around you. Look at all of the stupid shit that they do. They do not care about anyone but themselves. They are not planning their trip to make sure that they get a decent lane in time to avoid an ugly merge issue. This zipper bullshit is a great way to meet me as I plow into the side of your car when you FAIL TO FUCKING YIELD. I really hope that my dash cam is able to pick up the look of sheer terror and disbelief on impacts as well. The cab of your nice little sports car will look like a damn marshmallow factory exploded with all those air bogs going off. Yes, I would post it all over social media for the world to enjoy as well. Try me.

Should a minor object such as an air freshener be a primary offense to allow for a cop to pull you over? Nope! It certainly can be a secondary offense. In my state, you must have and use a litter bag in your car. Will they pull you over for it? Nope, but they will site you. If your car is clean, they will probably just mention it. If you have all kinds of crap that would likely fall out when opening a door, you may well get cited.