nada & commentary Sara on 28 Mar 2007 11:08 pm
Old lady drivers
On most mornings I jump in the carpool queue to get work. On most mornings I am driven into the city by reasonably pleasant people in reasonably clean cars (with the exception of that one time I had to keep corralling that spider off me) for a reasonably stress-free ride to work.
Today, however, the car that I ended up in was a small bright red 2-door manual-transmission Toyota Celica sporty thing being driven by an older person I later realized was a woman. She wore her hair shorn, red leather driving gloves, big trench coat, scarf wrapped dramatically around her neck and hearing aides. The only thing she said to me was: “Lever on right pull your seat forward” - I assumed so that I could give my fellow commuter legroom in back. When I asked the person behind if I could move my seat back slightly (”yes, of course”) the driver slammed on the brakes in the middle of the block. Apparently I had disturbed her sense of where my seat should be located (ie, with my face pressed against the windshield).
Her driving was erratic due to a number of factors, including the fact that she clearly never learned to drive a manual-transmission properly, had one foot on the brake at all times and like to yank the wheel from side to side - even when driving in a straight line. This may have been because she, too, sat with her chair pulled as far forward as it would go and her arms didn’t have much space to move over her ample torso.
Her style for merging into the far left carpool lane on the busy 8-lane highway in rush hour traffic was to roll her window down, lean halfway out and motion wildly with her entire arm. At the same time, she would have either slammed on the brakes or accelerated quickly without any indication that she had noticed who might be behind or ahead. I really did wonder if I would make it to work in one piece. I did. And here I have, for your viewing pleasure, some numbers about road traffic accidents and old ladies.
on 29 Mar 2007 at 12:33 am 1.mark said …
Interesting numbers for the 0-4 bunch.
on 29 Mar 2007 at 2:20 am 2.jen beyt said …
she definitely sounds like a person I would encounter commuting in the bay area. classic NARBER!
on 29 Mar 2007 at 4:02 am 3.Sara said …
what is a narber?!
on 30 Mar 2007 at 2:56 am 4.jen beyt said …
narber = no apparent reason for braking.
I’m not sure if beth & i made that up or not, but it was our favorite term for ding dongs on the bay area commute from hell.
on 05 May 2007 at 1:27 am 5.tallulah said …
This is hilarious! I was trapped behind her twin only last week, during rush hour, on the Dan Ryan in Chicago.
on 26 Mar 2008 at 11:46 pm 6.saraewood.com » Carpool chitchat said …
[…] I still carpool to work. On most days, the ride is silent save for whatever liberal talk radio station the driver is listening to. But on some days, people talk. I always think I should post the good tidbits, but never do and then I forget them and why they seemed funny at the time. […]