Category: automobiles

The end of civility?

This, the next in my line of roadway rants. See my four way stop discussion here.

This weekend The Good Man and I had occasion to take a bit of a road trip. Just down Highway 1, a small jaunt in order to meet up with a whole passel of my in-laws. (passel being smaller than a gang but larger than a group)

As we drove, in many instances, we were forced to merge, to turn, to navigate our way carefully through the highways and byways of the Bay Area.

I noticed, as The Good Man drove, he always, very politely, gives a wave when someone does him the favor of letting him into a lane, or allows him to turn in a busy, congested area, or stops to let him through.

I also noticed that when The Good Man generously does the same for others, he rarely gets a wave of thanks and recognition in return.

Politeness, it seems, is on the soon-to-be extinct list.

This makes me cranky.

Sure, I know that a polite wave isn’t required by any driving laws. I’ll have you know that when I had to take that drivers safety class to work the points off from a speeding violation, it was often suggested that a polite wave was much appreciated by others on the road. That acknowledging each other actually makes us drive better.

Connectedness people! Put down your Blackberry and say hi to an actual person sometimes!

I shall tack on a quick rant: Upon employment here at my new job, I tried, in vain, for two weeks to say hello to the security guard on the first floor who I must walk directly past EVERY day. It seems strange not to acknowledge another human you see five of every seven days of your life. But he will NOT say hello to me. Will. Not. It kind of hurts my feelings…..

What is this strange ritualistic dance?

This morning, driving to work, I saw many of my fellow Californians doing something odd…strange…weird….and yet, it felt vaguely familiar.

Yes, I passed the residential roads of my neighborhood and saw my fellow citizens by their cars…behaving oddly.

Some were using credit cards.

Others slapping with a newspaper.

One using just his bare hands.

All looked out of place.

Seems we had some low temps last night and these poor Californians were having to actually scrape the frost off their windshields.

I was never so happy for being able to park my car in the garage!

Oh I have scraped many a windshield in my day. Oh yes indeed.

I *hate* it.

Living in mile high Albuquerque, it was even worse when it snowed. So you’d brush off the snow, and THEN have to tackle the frost. Usually in my nice work clothes and high heels…in the wet and the mud. Boo!

Here, I don’t even own an ice scraper. I threw it away somewhere around year 2 post move. Don’t need it.

Clearly, no one else around here owns one either. The guy slapping his window with a newspaper gave me the most giggles. Beating the ice into submission? That is SO not going to work.

Thankfully it was a light frost and really, just starting up the car and getting the defroster going for several minutes would probably clear it up.

But the perplexed looks and utter consternation. That was good comedy as I sailed by in my warm, garage parked Jeep.

A public service announcement.

From eHow.com, the appropriate way to handle a four way stop. Emphasis added is mine.

  1. Slow your vehicle when approaching a 4-way stop. As you stop at the stop sign or red light, notice if there are any cars at any of the other stops, or if there are any approaching at the same time.

  2. Stop your vehicle completely. This means that your tires are completely stopped and not rolling at all. If there are cross walk lines or painted indicators on the road, stop at the appropriate lines. If it is a stop sign and there are no lines on the road, stop when the front of your car is even with the stop sign. If there is something blocking your view of the other stops signs, you may move forward only after stopping completely at your own stop sign.

  3. Look at the other stops to see if there are any other vehicles stopped or moving. The vehicles leave the stop signs in the same order in which they arrived. The first vehicle to arrive at a complete stop is the first vehicle allowed to leave the stop sign.

  4. Know that if there is more than one vehicle arriving at the same time at the 4-way stop, the vehicle furthest to the right is allowed to leave first. Always allow at least a few seconds to make sure no one else takes off even if it is your turn to leave first. Many people do not follow this rule, even though it is the legal way to leave a 4-way stop.

Note that nowhere in that discussion does it say that if you drive a big Mercedes SUV, that means you get ahead of anyone, anytime.

It also doesn’t say that if you come screaming up to the four-way stop at an excessive speed, barely touch the brakes, and then hit the gas, you get to go first.

I don’t care how busy you are. Or rich. Or good-looking. Or that your car is nicer than mine. Mine is paid off. And I don’t mind rolling that hoopty patched up with bailing wire and duct tape. Bite me.

This message brought to you by my frustrating morning commute.

(no, I didn’t get in an accident, but it was close. Thank goodness for that brake job I got last week.)

They never promised life would be fair

Today was a particularly tough day for me to roll out of bed with the alarm and come to work.

I didn’t sleep well last night due mainly to the crazed feline. I have a friend who has a theory that occasionally the cat brain will release some hormone that is akin to kitty crack, which then is the reason for the dilated eyes and tendency to gallop around the house making crazed movements.

If that is true, then my personal feline got deep into the kitty crack at about 3:30 in the ayem, and is, today, my least favorite person in the world.

Sleepy eyed, I ventured out onto the highway to make my way into my place of employment. I was heartened to see the sun slanting over the hills with the promise of a really warm day. This never fails to cheer me.

But that smile turned into a snarl when I made the merge and found myself rolling behind this.

Click for full size if you can’t make it out. If you can make it out, what you see there is a Forerunner with two surfboards sticking out the back.

Dude driving and his long-haired blond lady in the passenger seat are headed, I assume, to Pacifica for a nice day of surfing.

While I drive to work to sit under florescent lights all day and literally watch my muscles lose their elasticity. In a building located in what is considered one of the most foggy and windy areas of the Bay Area.

And this is fair how?

It never gets old

This weekend, The Good Man and I met some friends up in Sausalito for fun and merriment.

Getting to Sausalito means traversing the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge.

I believe this year makes twelve years for me living here in the Bay Area and driving across that big orange bridge is still as exciting as it was the first time I ever did it.

I have about a zillion photos I’ve taken of the Golden Gate Bridge, because no matter how many times I see it, I always find something more interesting I need to try to capture.

Then sometimes, like yesterday, I decide to come out from behind the camera and just watch as we drive by. The art deco uprights are still so endlessly fascinating to me, the way the light plays off of them, the subtle texturing. The stout cables that hold it all in place still look like dental floss in perspective of all the iron and steel and concrete that make up the bridge.

I wondered, as we drove across, if the men who finished the bridge back in 1937 could ever fathom what it this bridge would become. Could they have ever imagined the magnitude of traffic that rolls over it every day?

And how freaking cool that something built 72 years ago still stands tall and proud and virtually unrevised (but for some retrofitting and upgrading) since then.

I got to thinking, was there anything from my life in New Mexico that could even come close to this? Something that in driving by with some frequency, I still have the sense of awe and wonder every time I see it?

The closest I got was not a man made item. First thought in my head was Tijeras Canyon. Similar in that it is a roadway to transport people from one side of a great geological obstacle to another.

It still fills me with awe at the beauty and wonder at the too fast development growing in that gap between the Sandias and the Manzanos.

I tried to think if there was something like this, something man made and yet so enduring. Of course, the Indian ruins are far older than the Golden Gate, but not something that one drives by with frequency, as they tend to be back in the hills.

I suppose the most awe inspiring bit of human engineering and transportation in New Mexico is the Sandia Peak Tramway.

I don’t know, to my New Mexico friends, do you have any ideas? I’m sure I’m forgetting something…

Photo by Karen Fayeth