Road Rage

Do you know how lucky you are to be alive today?

I don't mean that in a "Look at what technology can do--we're getting jetpacks soon!" kind of way. More like, I narrowly avoided my own death again and it occured to me how common these little run-ins are becoming.

This morning I slipped in the shower--put my foot down and had that eternity of a half-second where I felt it slide out from under me. But I didn't fall. Again.

And there was the time last week where I dropped my soda can in the car and my car slid into the lane next to me...but no one was there. And this stuff happens all the time, to me and probably to you.

The vast majority of these little close calls are in the car, and no wonder. 48,000 Americans died in car/truck/bus accidents in 2002. Your odds of dying in a car accident that year were 1 in 5,953. Your odds of winning the Powerball lottery? 1 in 146,107,962. People are lining up to buy Powerball tickets.

Personally, I am a road rager of the first order. My odds of dying of an accident in my car are much lower than my odds of dying of a stroke in my car. The person unlucky enough to drive in front of me is subject to such violent invective that it is sometimes audible from outside my vehicle.

The reason for this intense anger is because of my calm, Zen outlook on life. I look at traffic as being a river, where there are currents that move faster than others, where those currents shift from time to time, and it is necessary to flow around non-moving objects or sweep them away. Anything that disturbs the inexorable movement of the river is working AGAINST NATURE ITSELF. This is why I get so upset.

However, there are little clues that I've discovered that can tell you who among the drivers out there are likely to be the worst sinners--the ones who are AFFRONTS TO GOD. I'd like to share them with you now, so that when you see them on the road, you can use the current to carry you far, far away.

--A Rhode Island License Plate. This automatically tells you you're dealing with an amateur, someone with little knowledge or care for the rules of the road and common decency. They'll run you off the road and not even notice until they pick your teeth out of their tire treads.

--Any anti-abortion bumper sticker. "Abortion Kills Children Dead" "It's Not a Fetus, It's a Baby" These people aren't anyone you want to get too close to outside of your car, either. Still, the sticker tells you a lot about who they are--likely fundamentalist Christian, believers in an afterlife, usually driving at about 20 miles an hour. If I thought there was a life in heaven after death, I wouldn't think twice about pushing the speed limit. Not these folks, apparently.

--Any New York Yankee paraphenalia. Their attitude toward the game translates directly to how their fans drive. They own the road--you're only on it to give them someone else to play with.

--Any SUV larger than the town you grew up in. These drivers, merely through the purchase of their vehicle, have already demonstrated what they think of you. Instead of "Suburban" or "Expedition," it should just say, "FUCK OFF AND DIE." You're part of the outside world, that strange and frightening place outside of the tinted windows that they can't control. It must be shut out, run over, and eventually destroyed. Forget about turn signals with these people.

--Support Our Troops Magnetic Ribbons. This is intended to be a sign of patriotism, but like all such demonstrations, the ribbon is usually about as far as it goes. In any case, the drivers of these cars are basically lecturing you to...support our troops. They won't say how. Demanding that the government withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible? Petitioning Congress for increased VA funding? Probably not.

I have to go now, but expect this list to get longer...