You can't get there from here?

 

Who would believe it could take almost 30 minutes to drive from Toys Are Us to my dentist on Ward Road? Its a true story. Maybe this is why on the customer survey, transportation ills are at the top of the list. Now I won't blame Garth Road entirely for this particular trip, as it was an unfortunate mixture of mishaps and traffic lights that caused it, besides, there is no direct route to our destination.

I've been an aggressive soul all my life and like I've mentioned many times, the fastest way to attract my unwanted attention is to do something in a car that is... well, stupid. I could say the offending driver is unintelligent, ignorant, dense, foolish, dull-witted, slow, simpleminded, vacuous, vapid, idiotic, imbecilic, obtuse, doltish... or just plain distracted. Incidentally, I have used every one of these words to describe said offenders at one time or another. I was forced to because I don't curse, swear, or use profanity, but believe me, my passionate description borders on those.

I even got very self-righteous when we were on a road trip with a semi-truck congested superhighway. I banged the steering wheel and yelled out to my bride, "They are using our roads for commerce!" I wanted all those trucks to get off the road so I could use it for vacation travel. Of course I wasn't serious... not completely. Have you ever noticed the amount of trucks on I-10? Its astounding and sometimes scary. I think the midday traffic is worse in this regard because the vehicles are usually moving faster.

The other morning we left for the gym and I swear we observed 3 different occurrences of stupid behavior before we got out of our subdivision. One car ran the stop sign. The next drove below the speed limit down E. Baker to Barkuloo Road on the wrong side of the road. The third tail-gated us the distance the car in front of us took to get from point A to B.

My bride appears to not notice these details and maybe that is why she has perfect blood pressure. Never mind, I am happy to expound on each and every one of them. I assure her, I do it for educational purposes only. Let me make it clear that I am not in rage and the one reason is I live a controlled life, but the real reason is I do not understand why people are driving so poorly. Are they simply distracted, or just sloppy in most other ways they live life? I have the same conclusion about litter bugs. Does the inside of their house reflect their trashy ways? I don't want to find out. I just want them to stop.

A real downside to living in Texas is almost all of it is private property. There is no place to take a relaxing drive. You can't just pull off on some dirt road and drive your ATV, side by side, 4-wheeler, dune buggy, or Jeep for fun, so the public roads become our playground. Modern Sunday drivers are everywhere either doing 80 mph, or tail-gaiting you at 35.

Now gas is creeping up and probably won't stop at the $3 mark. My solution is to not drive as much. I am boycotting the higher prices and we've collectively done this in the past until there is a glut in the market. I do predict that the cost of gas will have no effect on the distracted drivers and with my reduced driving, I won't see them as often.

My next question is how come there are so many people on the road during normal business hours? It seems like back in the day after the morning traffic ended, the roads were fairly open. When did that stop? I made an error in judgment when I drove down to Crystal Beach a couple of Sunday mornings ago to geocache and to look at some of the Jeeps that were attending the yearly top off event.

This was a mistake on my part because there must have been 10,000 vehicles trying to get across the Boliver ferry, or make their way back to SH-124. After finding the last geocache 22 miles down the peninsula, it took me 2.5 hours to get to the High Island metroplex. Other than being speed throttled, it was a peaceful 8 mph hour drive. Driverless cars are the only answer outside of a catastrophe of some sort. Its inevitable and my blood pressure will welcome them with open arms. If you can think of a viable solution to all of this craziness, I am all ears.