On my way to work, I drive on “boulevard” that has two lanes in each direction and a grassy median. For much of it, it has what I would call a “service road” or “access road” running parallel, with driveways into business and parking lots coming into the access road, and short little “ramps” for passing between the boulevard and the access road.
The access road has stop signs on both sides of some of the exit ramps to let the people on the boulevard onto the access road without stopping. At least that’s what is supposed to happen. For some strange reason, not all the exit ramps have these stop signs, and they have yield signs on the ramp instead. And this just totally baffles drivers. Too damn many of them stop on the ramp when they’re not supposed to, and that just frosts the hell out of me, whether I’m behind them and having to stop when I wasn’t expecting to (and not required to) or I’m waiting at one of the stop signs while they figure out that I’m not going to go and that they should go.
This morning, though, I just totally lost it. I was exiting at one of the ramps that has the stop signs on the access road, and the guy ahead of me stopped. I gently tapped my horn to indicate that he should go. He didn’t, so I pressed the horn a little harder. This time he pointed to an approaching car, I guess to indicate that he had to wait for this approaching car (never mind that the approaching car was already slowing down for the stop sign facing him). The hand he gestured with held a cell phone that was open and on – I could see the display. That’s when I blew up. I leaned on the horn yelling “LEARN THE FUCKING RULES OF THE FUCKING ROAD, YOU FUCKING IDIOT”. When the car on the access road stopped, I guess he finally got the idea and drove. Soon afterwards, though, he pulled over to the side of the access road, and I thought “oh oh, he’s going to come after me”, but he just sat there on the side of the road.
Since my parking lot was just past where he pulled over, I was still shaking with rage and fear as I walked by his truck, still parked there, and I mouthed “IDIOT” at him as I walked by. I hope that he’d pulled over to complete his phone call. But I’m half convinced he did it so he could see where I went, and I’m going to find my car heavily vandalized when I come out tonight.
But in retrospect, I got far, far too angry about this. I was still shaking a bit 30 minutes later, sitting in a meeting. And that’s what bugs me about this whole thing. Yeah, I was right, he was wrong, and all that. But why should I get so angry about it that I’m shaking 30 minutes later? That’s not healthy.