It's not rocket-science, it's car-science

Despite my best efforts to affect a Dude-like Zen calm, I am actually a fairly high-strung, angry person.  Stunning, isn't it?  This is largely due, I think, to my elevated awareness of the world around me.  And, let's face it, the world is a pretty stupid, irritating, ball-busting place a lot of the time.  (Hence my "drinking problem.")  If you did not know this, it is probably because you are one of the ignorant, annoying, oblivious fucksticks I resent and aim to enlighten/demean whenever possible.  Congratulations.  I can only assume ignorance is in fact bliss, because knowledge is a bitch.

Few situations arouse my ire quicker than retards (read: most homo sapiens) behind the wheel, not least of all due to the fact that your shitty driving is endangering my life.  Or at the very least delaying me, which is almost the same, since you are actively stealing minutes of my life.  And, because of my Holmesian observational skills, I tend to notice every last little thing other motorists are doing wrong.

This would probably be funnier if I wasn't 90% sure it actually happens.

"Road rage" does not begin to cover it, as I exist in a permanent state of mild irritation with everyone else on the road, and it takes very little to make me, in the immortal words of Ron White, "spin off into a whole new dimension of pissed-off."  You are (nominally) operating a complex piece of deadly machinery weighing at least several-hundred pounds at high speed; is it too much to ask that you treat it as such?  Think of it like the podrace in Star Wars.  No, you are not piloting an explosive levitating pair of jet-thrusters hurtling through the air at 200+ mph, but, then again, you don't have more midichlorians than Yoda.  You barely have more brain-cells than a bright orangutan.  Driving a regular Pontiac Aztek is the Jedi-equivalent for normal human beings.

This accident could have easily been avoided by not sucking.

By no means do I consider myself one of the world's best drivers.  That would be the Stig and his ilk.  However, because I am in a mindset of constant vigilance, I can typically maneuver my Chevy Cobalt (don't be jealous) effectively and safely through the streets, bypasses, and parking lots of urban America.  Only one chip on my car is my own fault, while the numerous other dents, scrapes, and dings are thanks to, you guessed it, other people.  Statistically speaking, this sample can be seen as an accurate reflection of the driving world at large; my car is a giant, four-cylinder pie chart, and that minuscule bit of missing paint above by license plate is a wafer-thin slice of the graph, showing what percentage of the time I am a dipshit on the road versus everyone else.

For example . . .

This is not the same as . . . 

. . . this.

It's confusing, I know, since they are both paved areas with lots of automobiles.  However, while one is a purpose-designed, restricted competitive racecourse, the other is a place I actually take my car.  So do families with children, senior citizens, and people even less-conscientious than you, believe it or not.  Mario Andretti's famed maxim "If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough" should be born in mind, not only because of its racist humor (heh, get it?), but also because having control of your combustible steel battering ram/deathtrap in a confined space is sort of important.  You are not Vin Diesel, James Bond, or Tom Cruise (anyone remember him?).  All of the other cars will not miraculously avoid hitting you when you insist on peeling out of the supermarket parking lot at 35 mph in your sweet flaming-eagle-emblazoned 1987 Trans Am.  No, wearing your black shades won't change that, nor will the fact that you just watched Transformers: Fast Shit Blows Up or More Fa5ter and Even Furio5er.  Sooner or later, you will collide with another vehicle.  And, unlike Jason Bourne, you have to worry about insurance premiums.

As long as we're on the subject of parking . . .

Parking is not the easiest thing, I will admit.  Parallel-parking is something like a six-point turn for me, usually ending with a rear tire on the curb and my front fender a foot out in the traffic lane.  And that's if I am sober, which is mostly theoretical anyway.  What can I say?  I'm in touch with my feminine side (*rimshot*).

Not the recommended driving position from the owner's manual.

But that's why, recognizing my weakness and the inconveniences it may cause others, I simply avoid paralleling in most situations.  If I have to park a block away, so be it.  The drivers who approach parking as if it is neurosurgery still get on my last nerve, though.

Here's what I'm talking about: there are several open spaces along the front of the building, directly across the lane from another half-dozen on a cloudless, balmy, late-afternoon in summer.  Decisions, decisions!  What's the only logical way to choose?  Cruising by them at a speed no greater than 3 yards-per-minute so you can adequately browse each and every possibility, of course!  Because it totally matters how straight the lines are painted, not to mention how many weeds are growing out of the cracks in the asphalt.  Don't even get me started on proximity to storm-drains or shade trees.

You don't want to be this guy, after all.  Fail much?

That's just another thing I love about Americans: our insistence on searching for the perfect parking space for an extra 15 minutes, rather than spend an extra four walking a dozen more yards.  Because, damn it, if you start compromising your laziness in the parking lot, what's next?  No mini-fridge next to the recliner?  Actually walking through Wal-mart rather than using the fatass, er, "handicapped" go-carts?  Hell, no!  This is 'Merica!  We're number one!  Oorah!  Love it or leave it!  They took our jobs!  Go big or go home!  Yes, I do want fries with that!  Just do it!  Word.

Recent research I have conducted also suggests Americans possess slim to no awareness of the concept of "lanes" on most roadways.  They either (1) cannot see the banana-yellow or polar bear-white painted lines on the pavement, or (2) assume these to be purely aesthetic decoration.  It is the only rational explanation for why drivers feel comfortable swerving back and forth across the road, never once touching that superfluous lever on the side of the steering column mysteriously called a "turn signal."  The only alternative is . . . well, I will let Clive Owen sum it up:

Turning is a more complex maneuver than it seems, though, as a recent experience of mine proves.  A fellow motorist and I are both waiting to turn onto a two-lane one-way road, coming from opposite sides of said thoroughfare.  So there we, our vehicles practically facing one another across the boulevard as we wait for traffic to clear, affording probably a good thirty seconds for all parties involved to assess the situation.  In other words, this wasn't exactly a Hot Wheels stunt-course.

Here is my scientific diagram.

Rather than turn into the totally clear lane nearest him - you know, the one you are lawfully supposed to use, if pure logic isn't reason enough for you - he instead takes the turn extra-wide and ends up in my lane, presumably so that he can almost rear-end me as I simultaneously pull out (there's some kind of sexual joke here, but the wording eludes me).  For no discernible purpose.  Seriously, there was no reason whatsoever to do this - he wasn't avoiding oncoming traffic, or immediately trying to get over so he could make another quick turn ten feet down the road.  He just . . . liked the far lane, my lane, much better, I guess.  Very justified excuse for a near-collision, right?

Can't get enough of my commentary on strangers' driving habits and lack-of-skills, but want it stripped down, sans flashy graphics?  Look no further.  I have been griping about this subject for quite a while.

*By the way, you didn't get that reference to "the Stig" earlier, did you?  The Stig is pretty much the preeminent ninja assassin of the motor vehicular world, the professional driver on BBC's outstanding car comedy talk show - which, yes, is a genre in Great Britain - Top Gear.

Yeah, he's more or less ShadowStorm in a race car.

He's masked, he's silent, he's made of awesome.  Don't be fooled by the shitty American version of Top Gear, which was originally hosted by Adam "the Least Funny Comedian Alive" Carolla for God's sake, England has the genuine article.