A quick Florida Driver aside

My friend Eric and I love to swap stories about Florida drivers and we’ve swapped some tales that seem hard to believe. Just yesterday my appreciation for how bad the drivers are here in Florida was renewed once more. For those of you not familiar with the area let me just clarify that I’m not referring to our infamous ‘cotton tips,’ the old age drivers that go 25 in a 55 zone. I find those incidents to be very rare. What you DO see is people of all ages, race, and sex driving ALL kinds of vehicles doing the absolutely dumbest things you’ve ever seen on the road.
So, it’s with that introduction that I give you a minor but enjoyable Florida driving aside from yesterday.

My family and I were in our truck waiting in the Toys R Us parking lot line to exit on to a major local highway when we became stuck behind a lady in her SUV. Her car was stopped and she was looking down completely absorbed in reading something (looked like a receipt from her shopping). In any event, the cars ahead of her in line had cleared out even before we had arrived behind her. So, I’ve got my, it’s Christmas be patient hat on, since you know when you’re on the road at this time of year that everyone is stressed and there’s just no point in getting bothered.

My wife Shannon and I start making jokes about how long it will be before she wakes up and goes. Another car pulls up behind us in line. Then another. Then another. It’s not like five minutes have gone by, it’s just busy. So, I’m contemplating giving the horn a polite tap just so we don’t wait until Christmas is over but then she realizes what’s going on and jets off. She gets about 20 car lengths before she’s caught up with the line. No biggie, it is not like she was really holding anyone up. Well, it starts to get more Florida like from here out. She decides at the last minute that she doesn’t want to use the exit that she’s been waiting in line to use. OK. Instead she’ll go against traffic in the parking lot where two massive lines of exiting traffic are converging on the single exit that she’s now grown disenchanted with. It’s still not quite Florida class yet. The lady then becomes frustrated by the car in front of her because *they* haven’t quite been able to pull up far enough to let her by (now that’ she’s changed her mind about her exit strategy). So, she veers around the car aggressively and leans on her horn, not a little polite beep, but a YOU MOTHER FUCKER kind of beep, before speeding off in a rage punching the gas, and driving like a maniac. As the sound of the ladies horn is wafting off in her emissions I watch, I ponder, and Shannon and I share an incredulous look and pull up in line. There’s not much to say – we see shit like this here every day.