People Just Can't Drive
I’m shocked at the amount of people who simply don’t understand how to drive, and then it dawned on me, that most of them have one thing in common, they are Hispanic. Now, I’m not being racist, I’m just telling you about some of my experiences and what I think the common threads are.
Last week, my husband and I were driving home, and in our neighborhood, there is a traffic circle, well more of a roundabout, but they are the same thing and for some reason, they seem to blow people’s minds. We were making a left turn, which meant that we had to go three-fourths of the way around the circle. We were nearly halfway around, and a burgundy-colored mini-van, who was coming from the opposite direction that we started from, was coming towards the roundabout the driver quickly accelerated, cutting us off, narrowly missing us.
Here is the problem, I originally thought that they were some asshole, looking for a new car, though it would have been their fault. But after thinking about it for a while. I bet that they not only can’t read the sign, but they don’t know what yield means.
There are signs that clearly state that you should yield to traffic in the circle and there is a long-standing problem of people not following the sign, but there are usually cases of people who just don’t understand right-of-way and who goes when, so they crowd the circle when you are already in it. But this guy last week, was not crowding, he was just downright dangerous and if he had hit us, he would have been about 40-45 mph which is way too fast for a neighborhood (the speed limit is 25 MPH), but that is a problem for another day.
How do you fix the person who can’t read the sign, and likely isn’t in a huge hurry to learn the language, and sadly according to the statistics from the local and state police departments are likely not to have a driver’s license or insurance. And without insurance, if he hit us, we would be the ones that got screwed.
I thought about making a sign in Spanish, but if they don’t know what it means, then that will be 100% ineffective and a waste of time and money.
Today, on my way to work, I stopped for gas and as I was coming out of the mall, and heading to the main road, there was a traffic circle (this area loves traffic circles) and there was no one around besides me and the guy in front of me, This guy not only yields to the imaginary cars in the circle, but comes to a complete stop and then eases into the circle and stops before exiting the circle. Then when they are joining the main road, which is very busy, he comes to a complete stop to merge and then slowly enters the road, crossing all three lanes, making cars slam on their brakes for him, all with the wrong turn signal on, which they left on once they were in the travel lane they wanted. When I looked over, sure enough, it was an older Hispanic man.
Again today, I’m in the left travel lane and the guy in the lane next to me, and a few car lengths ahead of me, is cruising along with his left turn signal on, and erratically attempting to what appears to be a lane change. I made the choice to slow down and give them space to make the lane change. After a few minutes, they didn’t make the change, so I accelerated past them. Sure enough, well you get the drift.
I’m sure that the majority of the Hispanic drivers are good, legal, insured drivers, I’m just venting on what I witnessed this week.
