Drivers Gone Wild

As we discussed earlier, criticising someone in person is not something we all enjoy doing (unless you are one of those hilariously evil people).Talking behind other peoples’ backs just makes the world go round but when it comes to expressing your negative critiques to someone in the same room as yourself you tend to bite your tongue or at least say it in a half joking way to gauge their reaction like

“yeah the haircut looks great – for a transvestite!

*pause – quickly scan other person’s face*

I’m just kidding – it is fantastic and you are fantastic!” *nervous laughter*

Hours later talking to a different person

“O-M-G she TOTALLY looks like a trannie now!”

This is life.

The one thing, however, that we never seem to be able to discuss is the driving skills of another direct person. If you are in the passenger seat with someone who is driving like a drunken hyperactive orangutan there is little you can do to get them to stop without them getting really offended, sulky and either driving ridiculously slow or race car fast for the remaining duration of the drive.

There are so many important facets of driving that can be done badly – tail gating, speeding, driving too fast around corners or on wet roads, cutting people off, littering, not indicating, driving naked, falling asleep at the wheel, operating a tamagotchi whilst driving and so on.

It makes me nervous. And it is a little silly that we have to use that fake smile that says “I’m totally cool with dying today – I’ve had a pretty good run” and never express our fears when our lives are at risk. You can make some feeble analogy to make them get the hint like “Oh... on a totally unrelated note I knew this guy once, friend of a friend, who was driving really fast with his closest family members in the car and because he was going too fast they smashed into an apartment building and everybody in the car and the building died because the building collapsed on it and it was because he was driving too fast. That’s the thing with driving too fast though, huh?”

I guess you can somehow try to screen the potential drivers in your life based on their car appearance. Though this can be misleading. If the car is a race car you might need to worry, if the car is deceptively safe looking you might need to worry and if the car has bumps and scratches all through the paint with the number plate hanging off and the bonnet leaking fire then you should worry.

I mean of all the times when it should be kosher to speak up this is the worst. You just have to live (no pun intended) with the fact that you may die as a direct cause of these crap drivers. As much as you want to scream out “SLOW DOWN YOU CRAZY B****! HOLY CRAP, LOOK OUT! AHHHHHH!” You probably won’t. Instead you’ll silently cry and wet yourself. It’s the polite choice.