If you have been reading some of my recent posts, you are probably aware that I have been talking about some of my exploits and experiences after being assigned to the JITC at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. My story today centers around a subject that I have written about a few times in the past. You may even remember reading about some of those stories such as an ill-fated camping trip that occurred at Riggs Flat Lake located along the top of the Pinaleno Mountains near Safford, Arizona. You may even remember a more recent story about that problematic Tempo from hell, as I liked to call it. That car gave me nothing but consternation and pain. Actually, it gave my wife consternation and pain. Cuz that was actually her car. My car was a Jeep Wrangler. My story today actually deals with my Jeep Wrangler rather than that problematic Ford Tempo. I never had issues with that Jeep Wrangler. Well, sure. I did have an issue with a dead battery once, and I did have a problem or two with the catalytic converter. But I dealt with those issues last time. My story today centers around problematic drivers. You know the type. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in a big city or a small town. They are out there, and they are likely wreaking havoc in traffic. What sorts of problems do they cause? That’s an excellent question. For example: they may stop, cold in the middle of traffic to change lanes instead of trying to merge. Why? I have no clue. They just do. They may leave two car lengths or more between them and the car in front of them at a stoplight, or they may do the exact opposite and crowd the driver in front of them. I always hated drivers who rode my rear bumper because it was a sure sign that they were asking for a collision. Then, there are those drivers that never signal their intentions, so you have to guess where in the hell they’re going. And it is these drivers that usually brake and turn at the very last second. If you don’t give them enough clearance, you are headed for a surefire collision. My personal favorite are the drivers that like to change lanes without looking nor signaling their intention to change lanes, and they jump into your lane almost on top of you. If your reflexes are just a few seconds slow, you are going to have a collision. Finally, there are those drivers who drive without proper license credentials or insurance credentials or both. That could leave you holding the bill in the event of an accident. Why do I bring all of this up? Well, once upon a time way back when, there was a character named “Roseanne Roseannadanna” on the TV show “Saturday Night Live.” That character’s tagline was, “it just goes to show you, it’s always something – if it ain’t one thing, it’s another.” Basically, that means no matter what you do, you can drive and do everything absolutely correctly and still be overwhelmed by stupid shit. Cuz stupid shit is out there lurking just waiting to rear its ugly head and bite you in the ass when you least expect it. And stupid shit usually comes in the form of those problematic drivers. Case in point: one night after work, I was driving down Buffalo Soldier Road in Sierra Vista toward Highway 92. I drew a red light at Highway 92 with no right turn on red and oncoming traffic, so I stopped and waited. Cuz that’s what normal, sane, experienced drivers do. The light was taking a long time to change from red to green, so I shifted the transmission from fourth gear to neutral and eased my foot off the brake. I slowly ease my foot off the brake just to check to see if I would roll. When my vehicle did not roll, I took my right foot completely off the brake and rested it while keeping my left foot on the clutch pedal. About a minute later, I felt a slight bump and heard the crunch of metal against metal coming from behind me. The car immediately behind me had hit me, but how was that possible? We were all stopped at a red light. I pulled my car over to the shoulder, and I motioned for the car behind me to pull over to the shoulder as well. There was a lady driving the car behind me. The car behind me was a late-model Cadillac. There didn’t appear to be any damage to her car, but she had flattened one of the rear oval donut bumpers on my Jeep Wrangler. I asked her how in the hell she could hit my car at a stoplight? She replied, “I saw you take your foot off the brake, so I thought I could take my foot off the brake too.” I said, “look lady, it doesn’t work that way. My Jeep has a manual transmission. I can shift the transmission into neutral so it doesn’t move. Your car has an automatic transmission. It’s always in gear, unless you shift it to park. You didn’t do that.” I asked her for her driver’s license, vehicle registration, and insurance. Meanwhile, several people from several other vehicles told me they had seen the accident and would be my witnesses. I looked around for the lady because I thought she had gone to her car to get her driver’s license and vehicle information. But she had disappeared. Her car was locked up, and she was nowhere to be found. I asked one of the drivers at the scene to go call the Highway Patrol and the police to report the accident because she fled the scene. About the same time that she arrived back at the scene with her husband, law enforcement showed up at the scene and started to take my statement. Her husband started to get angry with me for calling the authorities, but I told him that she didn’t tell me where she was going or what she was doing, she had just left. To me, it appeared that she had fled the scene of the accident. I found out why too. Her driver’s license was expired. That was just GR-8. Great. The patrolman who responded to the accident found her responsible for the accident and cited her for driving without a license. Their insurance fixed my Jeep at no cost to me. As a result, other than some lost time, I experienced no further exercises in futility.
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