Rules of the Road

“Have you ever noticed? Anybody going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster is a maniac.”

George Carlin

We drew up to the red traffic light in the left lane. Sitting in the passenger seat, herself looked to the right lane where a dark blue BMW SUV slid up alongside at the intersection. “Look at that!” said she. Behind the tinted window, the driver’s head jerked up and down, hand gesticulating our way. Was that a middle finger? “Does he want to talk to us?”  She rolled down her window. He rolled down his. “You realize you were going 29 miles an hour! You’ve got a line of people behind you! The speed limit is 40 miles an hour, for God’s sake!” (Words modified for sensitive readers.)

Herself pled not guilty. She yelled to him over the traffic din, “Sorry! We’re leading some friends out of town, and they’re very slow.” This did not assuage. “You’ve been crawling since Shore Acres Boulevard!” (again, actual words edited). The light changed, he zipped up his window and burned rubber, putting us in our place. Our friends pulled up docilly behind us. They had forgotten to bring a charger for their visit and could not bring up Google Maps.

The wrathful driver was nice-looking, wore a collared shirt. I pondered. Why was he so irate? He was driving a Beemer, obviously financially secure, unless he was late on payments. He likely had a house, air conditioning and a full refrigerator. Maybe a swimming pool. On this same day in Sudan there were people short of those things, plus down to their last quart of water. Sudanese ride on donkeys.

Maybe he was running late for a golf reservation or there was a sale at Total Wine on ten-year, oak barrel aged bourbon and he had to hustle before the inventory ran out. Also, not on  your radar if you live in Sudan.

I calculated the time the BMW man had lost over fifteen blocks grinding his teeth behind us. At  1/8^th of a mile per block, 29 mph would take 3.3 minutes to cover fifteen blocks. If he had floored the accelerator to 60, he could have saved two minutes and a bit, enough time to check three Instagram feeds or recite the Gettysburg Address as he cooled his heels at the next intersection. He could also have been pulled over and spent fifteen minutes rummaging through his glove compartment for his registration, while the cop gave him the full Ray-Ban treatment.

The flooding caused by last year’s hurricanes created a bonanza for contractors, drawing them from far afield, as distant as Texas and Louisiana. Those contractors – drywall men, electricians, and plumbers – lived in houses back home like those they now demolished. They rode in after hurricanes Helene and Milton, becoming a third flood – a flood of pickup trucks. Crew cab, full size, pickups have swagger. Assertive, pugnacious decals plaster their rear windows and bumpers. On 22nd Avenue a King Ranch Ford F-150 4X4 loomed behind me. The gleaming chrome metal grill filled my rear-view mirror like gigantic truck braces. As it pulled out and passed, bulleted chrome wheel covers spinning, I saw a Punisher skull image and a Blue Lives Matter flag on the rear window, trailed by a “Don’t Tread on Me” license plate. A force field of masculinity washed over me as it rumbled by.

Was that a sneer from the guy in the passenger seat? Had they seen the decals on my MINI Cooper? Were there “tells?” Did they reveal I was a voter of the southpaw persuasion, a Chardonnay sipper, more comfortable driving a keyboard than a front-end loader? I reviewed the decals on my rear window: Slava Ukraini, not bad, sort of martial, gutsy; Tampa Bay Water Keepers, environmental outfit, humm, maybe a little squishy; Lost Angler, a fishing outfitter, maybe the “angler” bit too upscale; and Sweet Cow, a favorite Boulder ice cream shop, maybe a little woke – the cow looks gay.

You do not need Facebook to figure someone out. Bumper stickers and decals do the job.

The Cybertruck moves the goalposts in the attitude game. The irate 40^th Avenue Beemer driver feels a twinge of envy when he sees one, resolves to make it his next purchase. It would ram an irritating slowpoke and drive the car off the road. Cybertrucks are assault vehicles from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, giant metal cockroaches from a dystopian future. When I pull up next to one, I imagine a compartment opening on the side of the beast. Gigantic claws would reach out and consume the MINI with a metallic burp, me in it. Cybertrucks eat Prii for between-meal snacks, little fish symbols and all.

Decades ago, I volunteered to teach a class on ethics to seventh graders. Other than having to deal with seventh grade boys, who are sub-human, it was a good experience. I used traffic signals and rules as a metaphor for how ethics are important to society for regulating our interactions, so we do not collide at intersections.  There were a few appreciative nods from the girls. The boys scratched and stared out the window, conjuring up a multiple car smashup.

My metaphor has crashed. These days, traffic signs are seen as suggestions. At a four-way stop, drivers check each other out, see who will flinch first. “The Rule of the Right” used to be a driver’s maxim, not a reflection of current politics. The yellow caution light at an intersection has become the white flag on the final lap of an Indy car race. Accelerators go to the floor, in a Beat the Light Xbox game.

As Sergeant Phil Esterhaus admonished the Hill Street Blues cops before they hit the streets of Chicago: “Let’s be careful out there.”