Wednesday, November 18, 2009

An Open Letter to the Guy who Merged onto I-71 in Front of Me Last Night.

Dear Guy who Merged onto I-71 in Front of Me Last Night,

I couldn't help but notice that you shouldn't be allowed to drive on the same roads as the general public. Maybe it's your sense of adventure or your devil-may-care attitude, but merging onto a busy highway at 35 miles per hour while it's raining after nightfall with no headlights on while you're talking on your cellphone is typically enough for me to lament the fact that you, presumably, are legally licensed to drive.

I've come across a lot of idiot drivers in my time, but I've never come across someone that has made this many dangerous errors simultaneously. I know Ohio drivers aren't the best. Sure, they don't drive like Jeff Gordon on PCP, as Michigan drivers do, and they don't drive everywhere doing 25 like a lot of folks in Florida. I've had run-ins with moronic thugs on crotch-rockets weaving in and out of traffic on 75, and I've nearly collided with redneck meatheads who think that having four-wheel-drive in their giant stupid trucks means that they don't have to be careful on top of six inches of snow. I won't go into any specific rants in this post about people and their inability to drive in snow around the greater Cincinnati area. They know who they are. Still, none of these people have astounded me quite as much, in terms of total ignorance of their surroundings, quite like someone who, say, might merge onto a busy highway at 35 miles per hour while it's raining after nightfall with no headlights on while talking on a cellphone.

Let me gently make the point that, while I don't consider myself to be an advocate of suicide, I can still think of many, many ways that you can off yourself with no involvement of the strangers around you, other than, for instance, merging onto a busy highway at 35 miles per hour while it's raining after nightfall with no headlights on while you're talking on your cellphone. As a matter of fact, I can even think of at least three other ways you can kill yourself with your car, off the top of my head, that don't involve jeopardizing the safety of those around you. You f#$%ing idiot.

If anyone should notice a man in his early-to-mid 40s that drives a maroon sedan like a jackass and looks kind of like Dante Hicks from Clerks, make sure you take down his license number so we can report him.

Sincerely,

James W. Rockwell