Bigskeptic's Driving School, or How to Not be a Dick

Common sense is rapidly dissolving on the jam-packed streets of LA, and though the newly imposed no-cell-phone law is a start, it's just not enough. Sure, everyone makes a boneheaded move occasionally, but driving at any hour on any freeway in this city is practically a life or death proposition.

Part of the problem is that technology has turned the average driver into a blubbering idiot. Why maneuver when VSC, VDIM, TRAC, ETC, VGRS, and all of the other can't-actually-drive-but-my-car-will-do-it-for-me-acronym-heavy systems will keep the car rolling in the right direction while the poor schmuck you cut off takes a header for the ditch? Why actually pay attention to the road when your Lexus has the active safety systems to help you avoid accidents?

The problem is here: let's compare braking in feet from 60 MPH to 0 MPH.
Lexus IS350-119 feet
Honda Civic-126 feet
Ford Edge-158 feet

A Lexus IS350 with amazing safety features and an oblivious driver that cuts off a Ford Edge has a great chance of causing an accident because of the braking comparisons.

Pair this with the oblivious driver that cuts off a semi and you have a real catastrophe.

Now, to the don't be a dick part.

If you have ever:
1. Cut someone off and then slowed down...
2. Driven less than the speed limit in the fast lane (that's the left lane, to any of you that wonder)...
3. Darted in front of a big truck...
4. Darted in front of a classic car...
5. Driven in the right lane and refused to let someone enter the freeway...
6. Hit someone's car and ran...
7. Waited until the last second when you know a lane is ending to jump in the other lane...
You are a dick.

Have some respect for classic cars. What's more, many of them have drum brakes. Don't know what that means?? It means they can't stop as fast as you, and when you cut them off, the massive amount of steel used in their rigid construction will mutilate your puny little unibody wonder. And probably you too. So when you see an old car cruising along, resist the temptation to jump in front of it and slam your brakes. It's bad for your health.

This goes doubly for big, big trucks. Countless accidents show that people don't understand physics or velocity, but the proof is the pudding that semi trucks make of pedestrian vehicles. This goes for pick up trucks too. They will maul you, though not the extent of the overworked and underpaid trucker making a delivery who will barely feel the thu-thump of your Honda under his axle.

This pretty much comes down to looking out for someone other than Number 1. Remember that often times you get home alive because someone else out there decided to let you in that lane, even though you were too close to their car. That someone may have been Bigskeptic.

Taking care of each other is something that has to happen everywhere, even on the road. Especially on the road.

Skeptically Yours.