Over the past couple of months I have mentioned the traffic insanity I’ve noticed on the highways and byways here in central New Hampshire. The number of clueless, distracted, arrogant, or outright incompetent drivers out there seems to have increased quite a bit as compared to last year. The number of near-misses I’ve seen, the number of drivers going well below the posted speed limits, the number incapable of maintaining a constant speed (slowing down and speeding up and slowing down and speeding up), or drifting in and out of their lanes of travel, or incapable of actually committing to making turns they’ve signaled they’ll be making.
At first I thought it was just me noticing this, particularly since I officially became a surly curmudgeon after my last birthday. But after talking to my friends and acquaintances I have found that it isn’t just me. I mentioned this to Katy a couple of weeks ago and she’s noticed the same thing down in Connecticut. A fellow employee of the company that has the privilege of employing me has mentioned the same thing - she’s down in South Carolina – and that it’s been crazy down there. A friend of mine down on Palm Bay, Florida mentioned the same thing the last time we texted.
I was attending a ceremony at our Town Hall and had the opportunity to chat with a few of our town’s police officers and asked them if they had noticed the same things I and others had: People Driving Stupid. Every single one of them said they had, with one of them rolling his eyes then saying it has been a really bad year for it.
What’s worse is that the number of People Driving Stupid seem to be increasing every week. It doesn’t matter the time of day, they seem to be out on the roads all hours.
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, installing a dashcam in the trusty RAM 1500 is looking to be one of the better things I’ve done this year. I have a feeling I’ll be pulling a lot of video footage from it if this keeps up.
