Sometimes I wonder why some car drivers are in a possession of a drivers license. WHY are some allowed to drive? Don’t you wonder sometimes or are you Racer X? This is what I think went through the mind of the Audi Q7 sports- edition- driver who I had the pleasure to “meet” at the train station in Vienna last Sunday. All I wanted was to drive home after a hell of a train ride. Nothing more, nothing less. Let me paint you a picture: I am driving home from an exhausting train ride, using the middle lane, and going just a few kilometres per hour over the speed limit. What could go wrong? Meet Racer X!
Racer X:
Oh, hey buddy, let me tell you: He could go wrong. He will come out of nowhere, doing ninety-five in a fifty, slam on the brakes, and tailgate me like we’re in Mad Max. He will scream as I veer into the left lane and slam so hard on the gas that my clothes smell like burnt rubber when I get home. He is pretty much every other driver on the road in Vienna, and he is a goddamn menace to society. The entire time he screams and yells and tells me to go fuck myself. Do you know this typ of driver?
You’ve probably seen him engulfing your rear-view mirror. Or maybe you spotted him swerving in and out of stand-still traffic. Or you just noticed him hurtling by in the right lane. However you know each other, allow him to reintroduce himself: He is the asshole driver on the road right now, and he is out of his fucking mind.
Does he use turn signals? Never. Unless he is not turning, and just want to confuse the shit out of you. Then, always.
Does he slow down at yellow lights? Absolutely not. He speeds up. Green means go, yellow means go faster, red means I didn’t go fast enough, and now he is going to lay his entire upper body on the horn while I sit behind him, seething that I he has to wait at a traffic light for thirty extra seconds.
Does he at least drive inside his lane? No way. To him, those lines on the road are less like rules and more like suggestions. He likes to go two and two: two tires in each lane. It’s the Noah’s Ark method of driving, and he is the goddamn flood.
His driving is enough to make me wonder: “Should we even have cars at all?” The usual answer is: no, they’re terrible for the planet, so probably not. But the answer for him, specifically, is: dear god abso-fucking-lutely!!
Maybe you’re not a fellow motorist. Maybe you ditched your car in favor of a bike. Good for you—you’re doing your part to save the world. HE is not! He is pumping hot gas into the air from his death machine while he gives me less than zero room on the road. He is a typical driver on the road right now, and an actual monster. Are you just trying to walk across a busy street to get home? Good luck with that. If there’s no light, he is not stopping. If there is a light, he is stomping on the goddamn gas.
So next time you’re out in your car, or riding your bike, or trying to walk across the street, just remember to look both ways, and then look every other possible way you can think of, and then petition the city to get rid of cars or require annual road tests or something—because he is the asshole driver on the road right now, and out of his fucking mind.
