Seems Appropriate For This Blog

Viktor Berennes from St. Petersberg (not the one in Florida) sent us a picture he took outside a Greek toll station on the busy expressway to and from Athens International Airport.

While I can't read anything composed from the proper Greek alphabet, I'm pretty sure that I had better have correct change when traveling through that part of the world.

JULY 27, 2007 @ 3:54 pm – WB Ventura Blvd at Topanga Blvd

I have this theory. If an older driver owns a new luxury car, let’s say something like a new Benz, they seem to always refuse to look other drivers in the eye, refusing to acknowledge others are around them. I think they believe they are better than the rest of us. Boy oh boy, are they Highway A-holes.

I was running an errand in Woodland Hills this afternoon. I was driving west on Ventura Blvd in the right turn lane. I was planning to make the turn onto NB Topanga Blvd. At this particular intersection, there is a traffic right turn signal. You have to wait for the arrow to turn green before you can make a right turn. I was the first car in line for the turn waiting for the green arrow light. As the arrow turned greed signaling the OK to make the turn, I slowly started to make the turn into the congested NB traffic. Suddenly I heard two or three horns honks behind me. I glanced to the left to make sure no one was coming (although I did have the light and right-of-way). Sonofabitch, here comes a big-ass black Benz coupe forcing its way into sharing my lane.

I stopped after completing the turn onto Topanga. Inches from my driver door was the Benz. Sitting in the driver’s seat was an elderly silver haired biddy with oversized plastic black framed sunglasses on, as is the fashion now-a-days. She was staring straight ahead. She must have come from Topanga Blvd from the S, through the intersection (and a red light) and ended up next to me trying to clear the intersection for the rest of the traffic that was crossing E to W by that point.

I glanced over hoping to give her the old “mal' occhio”, or evil eye. Nothing doin’, she just kept looking straight ahead. Even when traffic started to move, rather that let me continue on (I mean after all, I was there first) she kept on getting closer to my door as she moved up. Being the fucking pacifist that I am, I stopped and let her stringy old ass go ahead. As I did so, she never looked at me to give a thanking nod or anything; she just kept looking straight ahead as if I wasn’t there.

Only old people driving new luxury cars would be that fucking arrogant.

JULY 26, 2007 @ 2:10 pm - SB 405 at Hwy 110

Soccer moms in mini vans suck... and not in the good way.

A nice warm day, good visibility too, you could easily make out the Palos Verde Peninsula off to the west. Traffic was breezing along pretty well as busy as the freeway was. And then it happened - the soccer mom from hell decided she was going to drive in the #1 fast lane. That in itself shouldn't be a problem, but she decided to drive 50 mph, not 67 as most of us were doing.

Two cars ahead of me I see the silver Toyota Sienna mini van, license tag 5CGU664, with a black grill bra strapped to its front end flapping in the wind. The van had stick figure stickers of a family of 5 next to a soccer ball in the rear back window. The white Toyota Tundra between us was right up on her bumper. I played it smart and kept a decent distance behind the truck. It seemed that as the Tundra got closer to the soccer mom's Sienna, the soccer mom would let off the gas, further reducing her already slow speed. The guy driving the Tundra was getting pissed and eventually passed her on the right flipping her off as he slowly passed her. I'm not sure if she saw his gesture of love.

I slowly crept ahead and behind the soccer mom, but not to close. I sensed that she may not know there are people trying to pass her. I nudged over off center left so that my day running lights would hit her mirrors. She never glanced back. She was down to 50 mph again while traffic in the #2 lane to her right was doing at least 60+.

By Carson blvd I decided that I was done trying to get her to move over. I passed her on the left after I merged into the #2 lane. As I sped up to meet the traffic flow at 65 mph, it seemed as if she was driving much slower now that the 50 mph before. As I passed her, I saw the reason why she was oblivious to the traffic around her. She had her head down towards her steering wheel and she was thumb-banging a Blackberry. Blackberry use while driving a car should be illegal.

Someone Has the Right Idea

A fan of the Highway A-hole Blog sent in this video link. I think he's on the right track to a possible solution of the problem.

JULY 23, 2007 @ 6:10 am - SB 101 Balboa Ave

Today we actually had a summer thunderstorm pass through the LA area. It made the air hot and humid as the day wore on. But, it was the morning effect of the storm that caused the Highway A-holes to bloom.

Whenever it rains here after a long dry spell two things happen; 1. The roads have less traction due to the road oil coming out of the crevices and floating to the surface, and 2. People forget how to drive on a slick road.

Slow down you A-holes! For the last 5 months we have had near 0 precipitation. You have all seemed to have forgotten how to drive safely in the rain. I mean c'mon now, all you have to remember is to slow down and keep an extra car length or two between you and the car ahead of you. And don't worry about what's going on behind you unlike what this bozo did.

I was in the number 5 lane puttering along in the rain about 15 mph. All traffic was moving fairly well. Just as I passed the Balboa on-ramp the car ahead of me, a 1995'ish silver Nissan Altima, decided to pull half way out of his lane to the right so that now he was driving half-way in the slow land and half-way on the on-ramp merge lane.

I've seen this before. This action usually means that someone was merging into traffic from the Balboa on-ramp and the chump driving the Altima wasn't about to let the black Honda Prelude pass him to merge. What the Altima didn't realize, was that a newer white Ford F250 truck saw the Altima move to the right, and figured I guess that he was pulling over. The F250 began to merge from lane 4 next to the Altima into the space the Altima half-way occupied now in lane 5 - the slow lane.

Horns blasted, people were yelling, brake lights lit up like a streak of Christmas lights. The F250 appeared to have taken control of the lane and was motoring on. The Altima was now completely on the right side shoulder, and the Honda Prelude was right behind the Altima - both stopped.

JULY 20, 2007 @ 2:05 pm - SB 405 at Getty Center Drive

It's become hot here in the LA area, and that seems to bring out a lack of patience in drivers. Today's report is more of the same HOV car pool bullshit.

A black 2006 Porsche 911 4S Turbo was being driven by a young Italian looking guy with the obligatory fat gold chain and medallion. He look to be in his mid to late 20's and he was by himself. I didn't get his tag number.

Again, here we have a situation of a schmuck darting in and out of the car pool lane across double yellow lines. He was himself looking rather pissed that traffic was a bad as it was. He was right, traffic was bad with the quickest lane only moving about 15 mph, and it was the slow lane number 5. The rest of us understood the situation and made the best of it. For some reason he would not accept that the traffic was going to slow him up for a bit. I lost sight of him somewhere just past Sunset Blvd. Traffic on the SB 405 remained bad until past Long Beach's Cherry Ave off-ramp.

I was hoping that a CHP cruiser or motor officer would have seen him performing is A-hole acts, but I realized that the $451 minimal fine would not have meant shit to this guy with the foreign trust fund. State of CA should increase the license point penalty to drivers who abuse the car pool laws from 1 point per infraction to 3.