Just out of idle curiosity, Silenus, how fast did you take the speed bumps? 20 mph? 40 to make up time for everyone else? I do not think it is reasonable to expect her to screw up her suspension to get your ass into the lot 5 sec. sooner.
Slowing down for speed bumps in the parking lot I can understand. What I find annoying is the way the big rugged SUV with off road capabilities slows down to .02 mph to turn into the parking lot from the street. Because there’s 1/4" difference between the level of the street and the level of the parking lot.
It could be the fearsome spectre of centrifigal force that might otherwise crush the driver to pulp against the door(s) if they don’t take the turn at .02 mph, or maybe the high center of gravity scares them (potential for rollover). I see big pick up trucks doing the same.
I have to side with lissener. Sure, there is a remote possibility that the crawling numbnut may be doing so because of some underlying issue, but I’m not going to assume remote possiblities or let it affect the rant. Occam says most likely answer if “fucktard”. Rant on, and deal with the outliers only when and if they show up.
While they were repairing a local bridge this summer, they had a scraped-off patch in the middle, with very nice, smooth transitions into and out of the patch. I can’t count the number of trucks and SUVs I saw slowing right down for these. They don’t slow down for school zones, they don’t slow down for playground zones, they don’t slow down for residential speed limits, but they slow down for the slightest possibility of something that might challenge their suspension even a tiny bit. Interesting driver mentality.
Yes! Ban the use of the term “hypermiling”! For some reason, hearing the phrase “They call it hypermiling” makes me want to hit things (with my hands, not my Jeep).
Q.E.D., I know a person who has actually tasted gasoline. shudder
Watch out for that puddle!
Well, of course the likeliest explanation is that the SUV driver was going slowly because otherwise his portable DVD player bounces and it makes him hard to follow the action of Showgirls.
What he said.
This is a Bayes’ Rule problem. Given that the SUV driver brakes like a coward, what is the probability that he has a painful chronic or terminal condition? You can certainly calculate it: P(A|B) = P(B|A)P(A)P(B’), or we can just agree that it is pretty fucking low and that Broken Hoe is retarded.
I don’t know nuthin’ about no Bayes’ Rule; but my wife was in a car wreck last Sunday that totaled her Corolla, and while she didn’t break anything she did jack up the muscles in her left leg pretty good. She’s been out of action since, and is in some pretty good pain even a week later.
Later this afternoon, when I take her to the clinic to get the stitches taken out of her head, in our remaining car (my SUV), you’re goddam right I’m gonna slooooow way the fuck down going over bumps-- speed or otherwise!
If that inconveniences any of you, I apologize in advance.
ETA: normally, I don’t slow much for speed bumps, as I kind of enjoy the bounce!
From the car or your wife?
Zing.
Both! YEAH! 
If there are speed humps in a parking lot, aren’t they there to get the driver to slow down below “parking lot speeds”? Isn’t that the friggin’ point? I’d say if you’re in a parking lot and you don’t slow down for speed humps, then there is a fucktard in this equation, but the solving for it is done a bit differently.
So that’s how her left leg got “jacked”, huh?
That’s a very good point. On the other hand, who gives a shit? Yes, there’s a non-zero chance that the person in the car is suffering from some agonizing disability that requires them to inch their car ahead like an invalid snail. Odds are, however, that the person is just a shitty driver. Either way, it doesn’t actually matter, because assuming silenus isn’t leaning out his driver side window screaming abuse at the other driver, his ire has precisely zero effect on the other person. So coming in here, wringing your hands and saying, “But… but… but…” is pretty fucking pointless. If, by happenstance, the specific driver that triggered silenus’ rant does have a genuine need to take speed bumps as slowly as humanly possible, then the rant can still be taken as applicable to all the other numbnut drivers out there who do the same thing and aren’t transporting cripples.
It’s a technical term; it’d take a scientist to explain it…
What the heck is “hypermiling”? I must be behind the times if everyone’s calling for banning a word I’ve never even heard before.
Yeah, I’ve tasted it, too. Not on purpose, of course, but back in the old days I didn’t have one of those sissy “gas can” things. If I wanted to fill up the lawnmower with gas, I’d just siphon some out of the car. And we didn’t have those wussy “siphon starters” either. We just sucked on a clear hose and stuck the end in the lawnmower tank as soon as we saw the gasoline coming out of the car’s tank. But I was a little too slow once…
When did you turn into such a prick?
In the same vein I hate those same SUV drivers who hold up traffic on a main higway with a posted speed limit of 45mph who hit the brakes to creep over train tracks. The same train tracks I have driven over daily with my 97’ Corolla doing 45mph for the past 6 years.
Eh- people think they can judge me by what I drive, that’s fine. News flash- don’t care.
People would think I was a bitch if I judged people driving old cars as “ignorant cousin-fucking dirtbags.”
Probably about the same time you started taking quotes out of context.