On Driving With Douchebags

In a word, it sucks big brass donkey balls.

I've driven the highway between Edmonton and Calgary a lot. There was a time several years ago, when I would do it twice weekly. My partner at the time worked there, and didn't like taking the bus, so I would drive down to get her and then drive all the way back. It was, I confess, kinda stupid, not to mention expensive (given that I did the trip in a 1976 Pontiac Firebird Esprit, which could pass everything except a gas station), boring and occasionally even dangerous. Winter storms on the QEII can be brutal: just last year, I had a show to do in Wetaskiwin, which is only 45 mins to an hour up the road. White-out conditions, however, meant that I did that trip in three hours, slightly longer than it would have taken me to drive to Calgary. It was white knuckle all the way, but the weather is far less frightening than the other drivers out there.

As a consequence of all those hours logged on the QEII, I've see some appalling examples of driving. I've seen jerk-offs on the phone (a personal and perennial pet peeve), not driving to conditions, tailgating...I've even seen one total dickhead reading the paper spread out on his steering wheel while he blasted down the highway at 130 kms/hr. Gives me chills, I tell ya. Seriously.

On Friday, J. and I went down to MooMooLand because I had a tarot gig in the evening. Long gone are my days of testosterone-fuelled mad dashes to Cowtown behind the wheel of a beautifully-sculptured, aerodynamic and mind-blowingly sexy classic muscle car with a crushed velvet interior and a 350 throbbing under the hood. No, now I buckle the dogs up in the back seat, set the cruise control for 120 kms/hr and set off in my little red Ford Focus. Anyone who drives slower than I do is an asshole, and anyone driving faster is a maniac.

South of Red Deer, but north of Airdrie, we caught up to a small white car with Quebec license plates who was driving like a fucking jerk-off. He was speeding, zipping in and out of traffic without signalling, cutting people off and just generally acting like a motorized dillhole. At one point, he (in the baseball cap, which is the telltale sign of a prick) and his three similarly-attired asshole buddies found themselves behind me as I was passing a large truck.

I did not increase my speed to do this. I left the cruise control on because I was already travelling faster than the truck and the procedure would only take a few seconds. But Monsieur Depechez-Vous behind me took this as some kind of personal affront, as I was delaying his arrival in Calgary by a good thirty seconds!!! Quel horreur!

So he got right up on my ass and tailgated me, so close that I could not see his headlight in my rearview mirror. I tapped my brakes. He did not back off. I tapped them again. He remained obdurately glued to my ass end. I was deeply resentful, but continued at the same speed. Before I could pull over in front of the truck, Jacques DipMerde zipped out in front of him and then--no doubt you can see this coming--he cut me off and tapped the brakes twice.

Well, because I was doing 120 (which is still 10 kms faster than the posted limit) and he was doing more, he soon pulled away from me. But then he came up alongside another 18-wheeler and slowed way down, so that I could not get past him. Very juvenile. I refused to engage him in this stupid game and just stayed well back, about three car lengths, never changing my speed. After all, with him in front and the truck next to me, there wasn't anywhere else I could go.

Unfortunately, that was also true for the traffic piling up behind me. And Dickhead did this twice, blocking me in behind a truck. The second time, I confess, I lost my temper, and actually passed him on the shoulder. As I did, he rolled down his window and whooped like the frat boy he was, giving me the index finger-pinkie finger and thumb raised gesture you see the losers punching in the air at heavy metal concerts.

Naturally, he got in front of me again, but then he sped off, thinking maybe he shouldn't mess around anymore with the traffic behind us. Sure enough, just a few seconds later, I saw a guy in a black truck cut him off and slam on the brakes, causing Shit-For-Brains to brake hard.

It would have been better to see him in the ditch, but I can only hope that karma caught up with him--or will catch up to him--sonner or later.