Scourge of the blue hairs

I drove ~45 minutes one way, every day, for 5 years up and down a major highway in Chicago. I've seen countless wrecks and about 5 where the occupants surely died. I've been cut off, flipped off, and pissed off in every driving way you can think of.

I finally learned to "tune out" the traffic to preserve my sanity. I have thick driving skin. Honking at me has the same effect as a bug splatting on the windshield. I may glance your way, but don't expect me to sympathize with your plight.


But nothing prepared me for the drivers in Naples. These are hands down, the absolute worst drivers anywhere, ever. Worse than Wisconsin even (no really, I mean that -- Wisconsin).

I complained in an earlier post about timid female drivers being dangerous. Ok, take that nervous woman who's afraid to merge, and make her conceited and/or senile.


Today I saw a classic: an elderly woman who was afraid to turn left. She edged out into the intersection like you do when you want to go left, but oncoming traffic makes you wait. When the light turned yellow, then red, she just sat there, frozen.

The light was red, so she wasn't going. But moments before it was green. Oh my! What to do? This situation, and several presidencies, must have come up before. Everyone waited for her to go, but she wouldn't move. This wasn't just a pause while she hurried out of the way. She wouldn't go, despite us coaxing her.

It took a few minutes and a complete halt to all traffic at the intersection of 6 and 4 lanes before she finally idled herself out of the way. Then she took up both lanes. It's a miracle her blinker didn't stay on. Not her fault I suppose, but still dangerous.

If this were an isolated incident I would shrug it off. But driving in Naples is a never ending gamble. At least in Chicago I could just pick a lane and zone out. The average speed may be 30 miles over the posted limit, but at least you could count on capable drivers. Wha ho! Not here baby. You never know what variety of driving incompetency will rear its head.


Then there are the rich old white guys. These guys are the worst because their idea of being fucked with by the cops is being run out of lovers lane by Officer McFriendly after the sock hop. But now they're old, crotchety and rich. The only thing more annoying than money is old money. A lifetime of entitlement makes for insufferable prigs.

They all drive high end cars worth $85k+ (today I saw two bentley's which run about $175k new). Can you imagine the pretension? The most common are either german cars, or caddys with a fake cloth roof (not the best pic, imagine them higher end and in mismatched colors, like navy blue with a white roof). They find this stylish rather than garish. See also: combovers.

Seriously, who gold paints a car? Not counting pimps. I saw a gold bimmer, and I know that's not stock. That's worse than a bumper sticker about your bluetooth wearing honors student.


They stop at least 100 feet behind the car in front of them at every traffic light, then sloooooooowly, less than idle, inch up to the car in front of them, fully stopping at least 5 times on the way. They do this because they think it draws attention away from the scotch they're drinking, but really it just raises the chances of an accident because no one expects the car in front of them to slam on the brakes a fifth of a mile from the light.

And we see you knockin' back the whiskey, old timer. You're not fooling anyone with your "go cup". Nobody slugs metamucil.


Then they turn on their left blinker while in the right lane, and proceed to turn left in front of all the lanes. This would be remotely permissible if their reaction times were such that they could pull it off before any other lanes started going. "They know what I mean" I've heard them remark. Meanwhile the rest of us swerve to miss them.


Amazing. Stupid old rich fuckers. I hate this town. Pretentious fucks. I haven't been this stressed out driving since I commuted through Detroit when I was 19 years old and had never seen heavy traffic before.


I have to admit though, the "de facto no open container law" is a cool arrangement (Naples has an open container law, but it's unenforced). Whenever you leave one house to head to another, they bring out the keg cups. You put your drink in it, recently refreshed if you're on the ball, and head off, even if you're the driver.

Everyone does this. Everyone. To not do so raises eyebrows. I don't because I don't want to start any bad habits, but I'm the exception. The old farts just laugh smugly when I tell them such behavior is unheard of elsewhere. Now I'm the default DD. Oh well.

Past 5pm (that's 9pm for old farts), you can count on roughly 50% of the drivers in Naples literally drinking and driving. I've seen rich old white guys stagger to their gold benz's and putter away, slooooooowly inching up to the light...



I miss Seattle. I miss it alot. I want to slam cheap beer in the alley with the help, or bum smokes off the pimp on the overpass. I can't take any more of the plastic fantastic.

Just a few more days.