[i_am_socket]

I'm not prone to road rage, but some stuff in the last week of driving has really just pissed me off.

1) Traffic on the way to work one day. The weather was fine, there were no accidents or construction zones, no special events that would otherwise choke up traffic. No no. It was a really short woman of south Asian descent driving a Geo Prism at 35 MPH in a 55 MPH highway where traffic normally flows around 60. That is a tiny car and yet she still could only barely see over the steering wheel. That should be at least as illegal as driving with a cell phone and should result in a minimum of a ticket for obstruction of traffic. I drive slow, but I do my best to do the speed limit so as not to block traffic. That is ridiculous.

2) Filled my gas tank Sunday morning ~5:AM in Long Island. I pull into the station expecting to fill it myself (darn Jersey laws keeping me from doing it all the time) but to my surprise the owner/attendant/whatever offered to do it for me. While its filling, I'm going over the directions to my triathlon. I hear a splashing noise, but it doesn't concern me right away since it was torrential downpours the night before and something may be being emptied. Then I hear the owner/attendant/whatever going "oh, S**T NO! CRAP!" and I look in my mirror to see gasoline pouring out of the filler. The guy stops the pump then does another squirt or two that empties out the hole as I look on dumbfounded. "The stopper didn't work..." Duh. Why don't you try a few more times just to be sure. You can be sure I didn't pay for anything that hit the ground (at least half a gallon).

3) I've noticed this and a friend of mine noticed it too, but has anyone else noticed an increase in REALLY aggressive driving lately? Like flying down the highway 10-20 mph faster than everyone else while honking and swerving between lanes? Like major tailgating (within inches) and yelling from car to car? Its nuts.

And a few things that made me smile: more cars doing the speed limit and staying out of faster traffic's way. Maybe it's a karmic counter-balance to #3 above? I also saw yesterday some brilliant person driving a shiny, white, never even seen a muddy road let alone an off-road trail Hummer with a sticker on the back that read "Gas prices suck." I really want to find this vehicle and place another sticker above it that reads "I'm the reason" :-)