1. Stop signs are never optional.

2. Don’t block streets or parking lots when you’re in traffic. Just because you’re stuck in traffic doesn’t mean everyone on the other side of the road needs to be as well. It only makes YOU look stupid.

3. Did I mention that stop signs are not optional? Because they’re NOT. I wish I could put a cop at every stop sign, so that you’d all get tickets for your stupidity, and then hopefully you’d learn to use your damn breaks. But then… this far into the game, if you haven’t learned yet, you’re too stupid to ever get the picture. I still hope you all get pulled over. Over and over again.

4. Use. your. blinker. It’s not an accessory, that little lever attached to your steering wheel. It’s there to warn other drivers that you’re changing lanes or turning. It comes BUILT IN. I hope you get a ticket for not using your blinker to change lanes. Seriously.

That is all.

They say that wherever you go, there you are. And over the years, it’s also proven true that wherever you are, there too exist the world’s worst drivers.

 

“New Jersey drivers are the worst in the world!” declare those who frequent the garden state’s byways, while those traversing the highways of Pennsylvania claim that state holds bragging rights to the claim.

 

But what few ever dare to ask the bad drivers who populate our country is… where are y’all in such a hurry to get to? You. Yes, you, the one parked in the fire lane in front of a store just long enough to dash in for a few items. Or the man driving on the shoulder past those of us waiting in line at the toll booth only to then try nosing your way back in. (Better still, having the nerve to get pissed when people won’t let you!)

 

What the hell makes your time so much more valuable than ours?

 

I witnessed what has to be the height of vehicular hubris last week when a man pulled up to the sidewalk in front of a Starbucks and sat in his car, engine idling (what energy crisis?) while his passenger dashed in for a latte., both of them completely ignoring the gigantic “No Parking” sign less than two feet away. The best part? The car had handicapped plates, meaning they could have taken the very legal, very empty parking spot specifically reserved for their use about five feet away.

 

I’m sorry, sir, tell me again… what was it that makes you so special?

 

I can only assume he was related to a man I’d met a few days earlier while coming out of a theater. As I and many other mere mortals attempted to exit, a rather large man — dressed in a crisp white suit, wearing more bling than a posse of rap stars  and clasping the hand of a wife whose breasts had obviously cost more than many people make in a year — literally tried to push me aside. When I stood my ground, the man elbowed me and said, “Look, I gotta get outta here and get to my car before the traffic gets bad, so stay the hell outta my way.”

 

Only he didn’t say “hell.”

 

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I’ll bet nobody else in this theater is hoping to beat traffic. You’re a very, very wise man.”

 

The guy — did I mention he was ginormous? — stopped for a moment and I swear, I thought I was about to get punched. Instead, he settled for a few well-rehearsed (if not entirely original) compound-adjectives involving mothers and sexual acts. Because, really, what intelligent reply could he possibly have summoned? And profanity is, of course, the last recourse of the intellectual… which made it his first option.

 

Upon reaching the parking lot just as the man was pulling out, I can’t say that I was at all surprised to see that the vehicle was a sports car, or that he pulled into traffic without looking at the pedestrians he’d nearly run down.

 

After all, he was obviously a very important man with very important places to go, just like so many of the people he would be jostling for position with on the roads.

If you are old enough to say things like, “What’s wrong with kids today?” you are probably of the lost (or is it last?) generation that was taught to keep to the right. When descending a public staircase. When walking down the street. Goodness knows, when driving down the street. But somewhere along the way, this bit of what should be common sense that for eons had kept us from bumping into one another (and not in a “Hey, fancy meeting you here!” kinda way) seems to have stopped being taught.

Um, one question: Why on earth?

When we don’t keep to the right, it doesn’t just lead to clusterf***s mucking up the rush to the subway platform, it results in incontrovertible rudeness (thus justifying its mention on this website). Because, of course, in this era of “respect,” we can’t just wind up face to face with each other and say “Excuse me”. What with that golden rule having been discarded long ago as well (another rant for another day), we must stare one another down and mutter under our breath. In essence, we say, “Excuse you!”

And who needs that kind of agita? Like, ever?

This isn’t rocket science, folks. When we keep to the right, we move along at a brisker pace with fewer obstacles and certainly fewer unpleasant exchanges with our fellow commuters (whether we’re commuting from Main Street to Wall Street or from biology class to algebra). And when we lock eyes with someone, instead of thinking, “Hell!” we’ll think, “Hello!” It’ll be divine, don’t you think? Almost civilized?

Besides, if we keep going in the other direction and entirely disregard this valuable lesson, at some point people who drive vehicles other than Escalades are going to get on board, too. (Escalade owners are already a lost cause, what with their cars being the size of small countries in and of themselves.) And can you imagine navigating a New Jersey Turnpike on which half the motorists seem to have obtained their licenses from Great Britain?

If you can’t imagine it, try harder. And while you’re at it, keep to the right before some bruiser by your side makes doing so the only option you have, er, left.