I was visiting friends in DC this past weekend. On my way home, a truck had overturned near Elkton, MD, causing a major backup on I-95 northbound.
I got stuck in that backup. For over an hour. Trying to get to the detour so I could get OFF the highway and take a secondary road.
So I have a message for Mister (or Missus) Truck Driver Person: Your incompetence with your truck cost me an hour of my life, and I WANT IT BACK! And I tried to wait out the delay at the Chesapeake House rest stop, where I ate the greasy food there, so you also cost me at least ten points on my cholesterol! And a quarter inch on my waistline, too! Go back to driving school, you twit! If you can’t handle your truck well enough to keep it upright on a GENTLE curve with a SLIGHT upgrade, you shouldn’t be on the road! Repack your truck, drive carefully, or else turn in your fucking driver license! I hope your shipping company fines your ass for everybody’s lost time! You cost this country at least a few THOUSAND hours of productive Sunday-Night-Football watching!
There’s no link because my local paper didn’t report on a traffic incident two states and more than an hour’s drive away.
Now that I reread my OP, I acknowledge that the last line wasn’t entirely serious. But still, I was stuck in traffic for over an hour, got home late and tired, and I’m no big fan of the food at Chesapeake House.
So maybe I did overdo the rant. I don’t think I’m normally self-absorbed. But this is the Pit, so I ain’t apologizing. Instead, I’ll try to do better next roast.
As you presented it, it just seems to be a case of one person’s disaster (and possible tragedy) inconveniencing you. But feel free to rant away. By our rant subjects are we known here.
You know, you guys are coming down on poor Scuba for being selfish in the face of tragedy but have any of you ever actually eaten at the Chesapeake House?
I’m working on it. I’ve got anger-repression issues, among other things, so I don’t do much to relieve my tensions. I usually just let it bottle up.
What did I learn from this excursion into the Pit? If I feel I must rant, and I don’t really need an Internet-wide audience, I can probably rant just as well – and possibly just as effectively, for my own sake – by writing out the rant and then shredding it.
(Forestalling a begged question – yes I am getting help on my issues.)
Well now, I see where Scuba is coming from, sort of.
I mean, it’s horrible that the driver went through that, and I hope he is not injured. But sometimes when there are accidents and tie-ups I suspect it’s because some driver insisted on being an aggressive jackass. Or a moron. And that gets me fuming. It ties me up in traffic, it gets people hurt, it uses police resources, it costs me in insurance premiums… Accidents are no laughing matter and I know some of them are blameless. But when people drive like dickheads and cause damage because of it, I send a little ire their way and some of it is selfish in orientation.
Who cares what he was going to do with it? It was his time.
I’m with Cranky here. She’s right, I mean, we don’t dance with glee over the thought of violent deaths, but all the same, I’ve sworn at traffic jams because of accidents for no other reason than I wanted to be home on time, or to work on time, and so on. And I’ll do it again. Because I wanted to fucking be home on time.
With as many asshole drivers as there are, I’m surprised (and thankful) that there aren’t more accidents.
OK, I see how it might be self-absorbed to get upset when there has been an accident with unseen consequences that delay you through no fault of your own. But it still can leave you frustrated and upset and there is nothing wrong with ranting a bit about it, especially when there almost certainly was someone at fault for their careless driving.
Did you get home in time for the end of the game? A 54 yard FG to send it in to OT, and a 51 yarder to end it in OT. In the snow too. Go Colts.
And I too hate it when people overturn their trucks and endanger their lives and others. Not to mention cost another person an hour of his time. The nerve of the truck driver. Are you thinking of sueing to cover the cost of your lost hour? You may have a good case.
Do like the idiots do here, just drive off the freeway and over the grass or whatever the Hell is in your way until you get to open road. Or if that plan doesn’t work, blast down the shoulder and then squeeze your ass back into traffic at the last possible moment.
It works better if you’re driving a gigantic pickup or SUV.
Well, I should say, I have seen many little-cars-that-thought-they-could, but that at least makes the traffic j jams more interesting when I can sit there and watch that Ford Focus or whatever get stuck in the mud.
There’s assholes, and then there are clueless assholes.
So often I’ve seen truck drivers on 95 drive aggressively. Often it’s not a huge pileup, it’s one truck whose driver lost control and skidded only partway off the road, stopping traffic for eons. That’s just not right.
