My little Evvy came this morning. We're so happy!
(Click for larger view)
So the roads are infested with bad drivers, it turns out. Many times hath my gentle spirit been moved to correct, oh so reluctantly, the peccadillos of my weaker brethren upon the road (the infirm, the lame, the demon possessed) with an exhortation and the indispensably expressive aid of Motorist's Sign Language.
And yet there are many fine drivers who deserve to be recognized. People who drive well. I see them once in a while. I try to push a "well done" vibe at them, but this concept is unfortunately difficult to convey in the somewhat... emphatic vocabulary of the otherwise comprehensive MSL.
I therefore propose a simple social reward and punishment system. All drivers get to rate other drivers. Your rating floats above your car in glowing block numerals. If you don't like another driver, dock them a point. If you do like another driver, assign them a point.
After a while, people will be able to see bad from good coming at them from waaaaay off. The social stigma that accompanies a low rating might pressure some to improve.
Or not. But who cares, because the best part is, if you have a surfeit of points in your rating, you can use them to buy poetic justice. Thus, when I come up behind you in the fast lane and you do not move over to let me by, I will dial up a rain of earwigs upon you, and you will turn your wipers on high, and it will avail you not. A river, a swarm, a plague of them will pour through your vents and windows, fall wriggling into your hair, teem down your shirt, seethe into your nethers, and they will BITE YOU ON THE ASS.
The accident rate will assuredly go up, but happily my sense of driving satisfaction will rise with it.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Some yucksters will no doubt jest that my own driving might rate a very low score indeed, thus inviting hilariously ironic consequences upon myself. This cannot be the case, for two objective reasons. First, my driving is beyond reproach, a fact that fuels the fierce pinprick hearts of all the myriad stars that writhe within the vast abyss of space. Second, it's MY system, and I can quickly translate that into Motorist's Sign Language for you if need be.
One of the longer parts of the vacation is the drive home. Getting to the cabin by the lake is lightning fast, but the meander back is always sluggish, hot, and nearly endless. And the way people drive: it doesn't help.
Let me first describe how I drive: I drive fast. I keep right except to pass. I use cruise control to maintain a consistent speed and make obvious, deliberate moves so you know what I'm doing well ahead of time. Stay out of my way and I'll stay out of yours.
Now let me describe how they drive: slow, in the left lane, with eyes closed and hands clamped over their ears chanting "LA LA LA LA LA LA!"
Slower traffic keep right the signs advise. Keep right except to pass, they say. MOVE OVER IBIOT says my snarling grill up their backside. Nope. Their taxes paid for this left lane, and they have a right to be there. Besides ("LA LA LA LA LA LA") they have no idea I'm even there.
And don't ever believe stupid people can't be cunning. Who do you think invented "the box"? Yes, the box, wherein the slow car in the left lane matches pace with the slow car in the right lane to create a cunningly perfect trap for unsuspecting traffic, which pattern, successfully executed, can generate up to 1.21 gigawatts of highly charged frustration: enough to power hundreds of exotic curse words at extremely high volume. I would much rather be using that energy to press the gas pedal down to GET AWAY FROM THESE NORONS, but there you are; we all have to share the road and, as it turns out, vehicle mounted machine guns are illegal.
