The problem with you people is you need to chill-lax.
You ought to sign up for Rage-aholics Anonymous, you're so on edge. One little annoyance, and you go psycho -- especially when you're driving.
Road rage benefits no one, so you need to curb the urge to sit on your horn every time other drivers for no clear reason stop dead in the middle of the street downtown and sit there blocking traffic.
You can't honk or curse at them, or they look at you like YOU'RE the idiot. What's wrong with you? Have you no patience? Where's the fire?
A while back some 20-somethings stopped a car on Broadway to talk in front of Subway, impeding lunchtime traffic. A deputy leaving the sandwich shop told them to move to a parking space. And of course they said "Yes sir!" and did so immediately.
Ha! Just kidding! They totally ignored him and kept blocking the road.
You can't let stuff like that give you a gut-wedgie, or next thing you know, you'll get the cramps over drivers going slow, too.
Like the other day a photographer and I come back from an assignment and get behind this guy going like 3 mph in one of those square Cruisers or Cubes or Crates or whatever, at mid-afternoon, downtown, with no traffic.
We think maybe he's eyeing an attractive blonde walking her dog on the roadside. Perhaps he's hoping to impress her with the metal box he's driving so slowly he could be pedaling it himself.
At a red light we pull up beside him and see that no, he's not ogling women. He's texting. So what if he holds up traffic? Is the driver behind him ticked off? That's hilarious. Text that ASAP. LOL!
This is the sort of trivial offense you must learn to handle without blowing a nostril snorting in derision. A toodler texting and driving is commonplace.
Another thing that's increasingly common is the kamikaze pedestrian who walks right out in front of oncoming traffic.
Drivers should yield to pedestrians, but pedestrians still should not cross against the light as if a crosswalk's bordered by energy force-fields that stop cars. A crosswalk sign has no Star Trek button for "Shields Up." The laws of physics are not broken by magic stripes on the road.
You can't let that get to you when you're driving, or you'll start speeding up when someone does that.
One way to deal with such petty frustrations is to write about them.
You should try that, before you get a brain hernia.
Tim Chitwood, tchitwood@ledger-enquirer.com, 706-571-8508.
