We’re Number 2!

Phoenix is the second worst city for road rage in the U.S. I guess I am a little surprised, because I don’t see angry driving, so much as stupid driving. There was definitely a lot of rage and hate among drivers in Chicagoland (where I used to live). Here I've noticed there was not so much honking, nor as many Italian hand gestures.

Sweetface can sit out a non-arrow left turn without being honked at (most of the time). He has this thing about being the second or third car to turn left at a yellow light. If he’s behind the white line, he won’t. When we moved here, the rampant occurrences of stupid driving was a bit of a shock. Brain fry, brought on by lifetime in the hot sun, I guess.

Here in the Phoenix valley, five cars get through a yellow light, which of course, they don’t really get through the yellow light. The last three cars kind of plow into the intersection because they feel like they’ve sat at that intersection long enough and deserve to put the lives of strangers at risk.

The streets are bad, but the freeways are Stephen King scary. The HOV lane (for carpoolers), on the far left of the freeway, could be renamed the Autobahn lane. Except that some people believe it’s still the HOV lane and drive something that resembles the speed limit. By far the dumbest driver I saw on the freeway was a woman who had covered all of the windows of (except the windshield) of her sedan with foil sunshades.

On the streets there are a lot of rice boys (teenagers driving cheap cars they’ve souped up so they look fast) and princesses driving with a cigarette in one hand and a cellphone in the other. There are angry soccer moms out for vengeance, and treadmill day traders with their phones attached to their ears and their Palm Pilots attached to their hand as if they joined up with the Borg, because the office couldn’t possibly do without them for five minutes.

Now, I know that the police don’t have time to track down everyone that ever cut me off. Or almost smashed into me because they were checking the NASDAQ on the CrackBerries, but I wish there was an official, central place to report reckless driving. If drivers get enough citations from fellow citizens maybe they could be investigated by the police, or get a point on their license. Or even receive a nasty note on MVD stationary telling them they are irresponsible, narcissistic, out-of-control jerks and we hope they aren’t reproducing.

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