Driving to work this morning there’s this car on the freeway driving with only their parking lights on.
Ok yeah, it’s dangerous but I’m sure that the person driving had no idea. Their instrument cluster was probably lit and they were driving a new car. I’m sure they were still getting used to the car.
Hell I’ve done the same thing in my car after it’s been serviced. The dealership always turns the automatic headlights off while they have my car. It’s the first thing I check when I pick it up after they’re done.
Anyhoo, so I’m cruising at 80 and I see the dark car coming up in the lane to my left behind him, there’s another car flashing his lights.
The flashing light car was very insistent about trying to tell the dark car that their lights were off.
They were on the dark car’s bumper, then the dark car is passed me immediately changing lanes in front of me. The flashing guy sits right next to me adjusting their speed to continue flashing their high beams at the dark car.
The dark car accelerates obviously trying to get away from flashing guy. Flashing guy stays right on the dark guys bumper. Dark guy slows down. I have to brake. The two of them continue this dance at 75 to 80 miles an hour for the next 4 miles.
Eventually I decide that this is all too dangerous at 4:45 in the morning and accelerate past them both, continuing to open distance between them and me.
They continue their dance in my rearview mirror for the next 5 miles.
And it’s getting more and more dangerous. The Dark car obviously doesn’t have a clue but they’re equally obviously getting erratic in their driving and just trying to get away. They blow blow by me at 90 on a curving freeway transition. Flashing guy is just not giving up.
They round the bend and I see the reflected red light of taillights on the concrete barrier. I’m not far enough along in the curve to actually see them.I take my foot off the gas and coast as I round the curve. Yep! there’s smoke and that distinct smell that tires make when someone has slammed on the brakes.
No accident, but it’s pretty obvious what happened. They rounded the bend and saw a line of 18 wheelers transitioning from the other freeway and both had to brake hard. Neither of them learned anything because they’re both racing along in the fast lane continuing their dance.
I make the transition to the other freeway and continue on.
I couldn’t help but think again, that San Diego has some of the shittiest drivers in California.
These are people who will play pace car and actively prevent other people including emergency vehicles from passing. These are people who commonly blow through stop lights and stop signs. These are people who will sail out into traffic from parking lots and never even make an attempt to stop at the parking lot exit. These are people who will pull into a parking lot with a string of traffic behind them then stop trying to decide if they should go right or left, leaving that string of traffic blocking an intersection until they figure out what they’re doing.
It’s like driving in Eastern Kentucky in the 1970s when people didn’t have to worry about getting hit, because there were so few people in the area. In San Diego it’s that times a thousand, except that there are a million cars on the road at any time and the odds of getting hit or hitting someone a pretty much 100%.
I thank my drivers ed teacher from a Kentucky High School every day for teaching us the value of defensive driving.
I respect that the one driver was trying to tell the other that their lights weren’t on, but give them -1000 points for not realizing that they weren’t going to get their message across and not having enough sense to break off and go on about their business.
Sadly, that seems to be the way of things these days. Folks just won’t leave shit alone, and instead of focusing on the bigger issues they want to focus on the little details.
In the overall picture of the freeway, there are streetlights that make it very easy to see the road. In the rain or fog, those same streetlights are actually a problem because they decrease visibility. But even without headlights, the car running dark wasn’t a particular danger. I could see the car and even what color it was. Yeah it wasn’t as obvious as it would have been if it was properly lit up but it wasn’t a particular hazard.
The real danger was “Mr Flashy” because he or she was escalating a minor danger into a major one.
At some point you need to know when to give it up.
If you were really concerned about safety, you could call it in to 911. Tell them a gray Lexus sedan was running on the 56 freeway heading west transitioning to the 5 south with no lights on and wasn’t always using their turn indicators.
CHP would have sent an available unit and I guarantee the Lexus would have stopped when the Red & Blue lights pulled up behind them. Or not… and then there would have been another problem.
I guess it just brought home to me, it’s way better and safer to attend to my own shit. I’ve got enough to deal with, without looking for more.
