I drove my son to school this morning. Not something I do often since he catches the bus. But as part of class, they are going fishing and he wanted to bring his fishing rod.1 After dropping him off, I made my way home. Thirty seconds later, I was off the road, forced off by a mom in a white minivan in a school zone.2
Not exactly something I had on my bingo card to start my morning. The most ridiculous part of this entire story is the fact this all took place in slow motion basically, at 25 MPH. Instead of WHAT THE F—K!, it was more like WHHAAATTTT THE FUUUCCKK!
Anyway, I drop my son off. I’m headed home. Window is down. Nice cool breeze. When I see this white minivan start driving all wavy gravy coming my way on the opposite side of the road. Then, the driver, a mom, who should not apparently be the driver or a driver of any vehicle, much less a minivan, crosses the double yellow lines and veers entirely from her lane into mine. I say this with zero exaggeration. Ninety percent of her vehicle was in my lane and she kept coming like my lane is actually her lane and we’re now, according to a law passed down within the last five seconds, supposed to be driving on the opposite side of the road like this is the United Kingdom or something.
I have about one second to react because this whole scene takes place over the course of approximately three to five seconds. So I end up off the road nearing the ditch, dodging mailboxes to my right.3 Thankfully, there are no kids riding their bikes to school in this general vicinity nor are there any walking on the side of the road to school. Otherwise, I would’ve had to take the direct hit from the minivan. Just completely eat the wreck head on and hope I don’t have any major injuries other than a totaled car.
As I’m edging off the road, I lay down on my horn.4 Not something I do unless I fear an accident.5 In this case, a head-on collision headed right for me. I was only going 25 MPH. Not even that really because I’d just come over a speed bump so I may have been at 20 MPH. Yet here I am, just outside of a school zone at this point, being forced off the road.
The question or questions I have for the mom in the white minivan, who apparently, just as I had recently done thirty seconds prior to our interaction, was headed to school to drop off her own child, is:
- How on earth do you drive recklessly going so slow?
- Were you looking down at your phone?
- Did you spill coffee in your lap?
- Are you simply that bad of a driver?
At the last second, it appeared the child, yes, the child, in the passenger seat yanked the steering wheel to course correct. The child. Not the mom. The child. That’s what I saw right before almost getting smacked head on. I saw a child sit up in the passenger seat and reach over into the driver’s area and grab the wheel and turn it back to the right.
So, to the child: thank you.
To the mom: you need to park that shit, retake Driver’s Ed and behind-the-wheel, leave your phone at home (if it was your phone that was distracting you), and not drink coffee that early in the morning (if it was hot coffee you spilled in your lap instead of a phone distracting you). And if you’re that bad of a driver at 25 MPH, please, for the sake of everyone, stay off the actual highway.
As a matter of fact, call a tow truck company and have them install parking boots on every tire of your minivan. Every single one. If one is left uninstalled, it might give you the idea you could still drive it. And you shouldn’t drive it. You’d be better off letting your middle school aged child chauffeur you around in your minivan while you glance down at your phone and drink coffee or do whatever it is you do when you’re supposed to be paying attention to the road which is what you do when you get behind a 4,000 pound vehicle.
Footnotes
- I think it’s cool they teach fishing at his school. Teaches them how not to get a fishing hook stuck in their nether regions and also I’m not a great teacher of fishing. See: “How not to fish.” ↩︎
- Who clearly should NOT have a driver’s license of any kind. She shouldn’t even be allowed to drive a go-kart or a bumper boat. Well, maybe a bumper boat. That appears to be where she got her behind-the-wheel instruction. ↩︎
- No, I didn’t hit anyone’s mailbox so if something is wrong with your mailbox, it has nothing to do with me. ↩︎
- And would you believe this woman beeps her horn back?! ↩︎
- If you beep your horn at people and it’s not in a “Hello friend” kind of way, i.e. you’re being friendly, or for actual safety reasons, not just annoyance reasons, then there should be legislation in place to shove your car horn up your gluteus maximus on a permanent basis so that every time you sit down, you hear your own car horn reverberating throughout your spine. ↩︎
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