Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Bad driver of the day

Actually, this post will cover 2 days.

Yesterday:
At Wright-Patt they've put in removable steel posts to replace the previous orange traffic barriers. There are two lanes going through the gate. As you turn from the light, the right lane is blocked off, then the left lane, then the right lane again at the guard post. Obviously you have to drive slow and zigzag to get through them, which is the point. Not too long before I got there, one driver apparently didn't see the 3rd set of posts (and was in the right lane despite the fact that the guard post is on the left). She managed to ruin one of the posts by attempting to drive through it.

Today:
I was stopped at a red light on 202 at Executive heading South when another car pulled up on my left. The light for the cross traffic turned red and he started to creep into the intersection. Opposite-direction traffic obviously had a green arrow, as they were turning in front of us, but he continued to creep forward until he was fully half way into the intersection by the time we got a green light. He passed under 70 and pulled into the center lane, apparently to turn into Waffle House, but instead did a U-turn to head back onto 70 at the point where he could have turned left. Apparently he's much too important to wait for the left turn arrow, or to follow things like, I don't know, Ohio traffic laws, which apparently don't apply to him. I guess my question is, why did he feel an illegal U-turn is less offensive than an illegal left on red?



Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Faking it

Today, on my way to Chick-fil-a, I stopped by Best Buy to pick up the new Devil Wears Prada album (even heavier than the last, without sacrificing songwriting or melodic structure), and I happened to park next to a large pickup truck. There was nothing special about the truck, but my attention was drawn to the gas cap door. I'm sure everyone has seen a chrome gas cap cover like this:


This particular vehicle owner apparently thought he could get away with not spending the money on a real one (and really, why would anyone want to?), and instead had a silver reflective sticker (!), designed to look similar to the above photo, affixed to his gas cap door. It was rendered even more absurd by the fact that it covered only about 90% of the surface of the door, and it was a flat sticker that could not be made to lay flat against the convex lip of the door (again, as above).

I really need to do better at having my camera with me whenever I leave the house.