Driving these days seems to have a lot in common with the running of the bulls in Pamplona--you're in the middle of a high-speed mass of unfathomable and potentially deadly creatures (because what's more unfathomable and scary than other people encased in speeding metal?)..and these creatures could, at any given moment, randomly and perversely decide to trample you..with no warning. Nowhere is this more true than on Southern highways. *I confine my observations here to the South-eastern United States, but chances are you've encountered these drivers elsewhere too.
When I was a teenager, driving = freedom..even if I'd been commanded to go to the store for the parents. Surely the Founding Fathers knew that liberty would truly manifest in a metal box on four wheels! I used to love driving, but now I hate it. What once was sweet sweet freedom is now an asshole-rollercoaster..but I'm not yet sure if that means I'm getting decrepit or if other drivers (me excluded, of course!) are getting worse.
I've driven as far west as Mississippi, as far east as the Atlantic Ocean (that's a whole other story), as far south as Savannah and as far north as Charlottesville. I've never driven in Florida, but there are enough Floridians on the roads in the rest of the South for me to realize that it's better if Floridians stay in Florida. But to drive where I currently live, I have to put on my game face on like I'm heading into combat. So, to distract myself from the battle-frenzy, I began pondering the different types of drivers I observe.
I've noticed that more and more people appear to lose their minds just because there's someone in front of them on the road. I've been behind people in no particular hurry and watched them speed up suddenly and start tailgating furiously when another driver appears in front of them. It usually happens whenever someone merges or turns onto the road a good 3 or 4 car lengths ahead, which ignites this particular type of driver. I can almost hear them screaming at their windshield: How DARE you drive in front of ME! I call this person the Sovereign Space Driver--this is the driver who treats the length of road in front of them (to the extent of their vision) as their own personal private space. They don't really care about the road behind or beside them, but NO ONE is allowed in front of them. If I didn't want to appear all stalkery, I'd follow a Sovereign Space Driver to see if they're also a Sovereign Space Moviegoer or Sovereign Space Line-hog. I kinda suspect that the woman in L.A. who pepper-sprayed other Wally-World shoppers on Black Friday was a Sovereign Space Driver.
Over the years, I've driven through at least 7 Southern states and out of all of them, I liked Mississippi the best for driving. Mississippi interstates may not have seen a roadcrew in at least decade, but Mississippians know how to drive with some etiquette. Slow drivers stay on the right and leave the left lane for the people willing to break traffic laws and everyone uses their turn signals actively and effectively. It works..except for Tupelo...trying to navigate Tupelo, MS is like trying to get somewhere on a Möbius Strip (i.e., it only works for David Bowie). But, most people in Mississippi can get where they're going without a stroke or a wreck.
Mississippians, by and large, put great emphasis on being polite, even behind the wheel. Bless them. Tennesseeans..not so much. Alabamians...oh mah gawd. Let me explain that omg: Southerners have this subconscious assumption that Northerners (New Yorkers usually, since in the Southern mind all Northerners are from NYC) drive really fast..way too fast. I don't know where we got that idea because every image I've ever seen of New York City is of a traffic jam. But, Alabama interstates..oh mah gawd. Now, I tend to drive like the speed limit is merely a mild suggestion that can be ignored. A number of Alabama drivers I've encountered on AL interstates, however, seem to view speed limits like open challenges--as in, can you get this many years in jail for violating a speed limit. When I drive through other Southern states, I'll spend the majority of the trip in the left lane passing the other drivers. When I drive through Alabama, no force on this earth can get me into the left lane because I don't feel like dying in a ball of fire and twisted metal. I call these homicidally-fast AL drivers the 95-Drivers--because they drive like they're trying to outrun cops on the I-95 drug corridor. In my opinion, it's best to just stay out of the way and let them get their drugs to market.
It can be truly terrifying to drive in Alabama, but driving in Virginia is a lesson in mind-boggling frustration. I have literally criss-crossed Virginia on highways and interstates and it's mostly the same--Virginians drive like student drivers, white-knuckling the steering wheel with a clueless look that says: "I'm not sure how I got here and I don't know what to do about it." Virginians, by and large, drive like they're some creature caught out of their element and they're not sure what the rules are, but they keep going anyway. They speed up and slow down and randomly change lanes because they forgot which one is the slow one and just generally behave like they're lost in the supermarket. These are the Lost Drivers. On my many trips across Virginia I've learned how to handle them in light traffic--pass them as soon as you can and keep them behind you. In heavy traffic, they are a forced lesson in patience.
Then there's the type of driver that is quite possibly going to kill you: the Frightened Rabbit. There are two types of Frightened Rabbit--the standard FR who trembles as soon as they enter a motor vehicle; and the situation-specific FR.
The standard Frightened Rabbit is scared of their own car, terrified of other drivers, and forever being startled by things off the side of the road that have no bearing on the traffic at all. This FR is actually trying very hard to be a good driver, but they're cowards and have no driving common sense. Their good-natured attempts at common sense on the roadway is usually antithetical. And so, they alternate their speed somewhere between slower and slowest, often driving 20 or more miles below the speed limit..even on interstates..because in their minds slower = safer, therefore slowest = safest. They slow down to the barest crawl through green lights; and I can't help but think that somewhere in their past they believe they've been tricked by a traffic light and so they don't trust them anymore. They also have a tendency to hit their brakes every time they spy something in their peripheral vision that is either car-shaped or moving. You can image what this does for not only the drivers behind them, but basic traffic flow as well. As with the Lost Driver, the standard Frightened Rabbit is a lesson in patience and considerable distance..between your bumper and theirs.
Now, the second type of Frightened Rabbit is the situation-specific FR. All drivers are situation-specific Frightened Rabbits. Don't shake your head at me and proclaim yourself the living incarnation of Dale Earnhardt. You have an FR lurking in your gut, same as all of us. Case in point: you're flying down the road and you spot a cop car. I guarantee that your leg jerks spasmodically from the gas pedal to the brake before you even consciously recognize that a cop just popped up. Cops bring out the FR in all of us, even would-be 95-Drivers. Cops know this, because like dogs and spiders, they can smell fear and bulls**t. That's why they toy with us on interstates.
For example: I was headed down I-26 to Columbia when I came up on a line of cars stretched for at least half a mile, all lined up like ducklings behind a cop..and he knew it too. He was vacillating between 10 and 15 miles below the speed limit..back and forth..and his ducklings matched his speed exactly (I know for a fact that cops do this for fun when they're bored, because one of them actually confessed it to me). All those drivers, that would have totally ignored the speed limit otherwise, had been transformed into situation-specific FR's and were as pliant as sheep being led to slaughter. Just for kicks (and because I was in a hurry) I got in the wide-open left lane and drove at exactly the speed limit past all of them..and every driver gave me the "Oooo, you're gonna get in trouble!" look. The cop didn't blink.
We are all situation-specific Frightened Rabbits and that's perfectly normal..usually. My own sister becomes one at 4-Way Stop Signs; they paralyze her to the point that she'll wait until the other three directions are clear to the horizon before she'll edge her bus-sized SUV into the intersection.
But, when the Frightened Rabbit takes over a Lost Driver, you have a situation that would make Jason Statham's Transporter sweat. Image being boxed in behind a Lost Driver-turned-Frightened Rabbit in front, an 18-wheeler behind, going downhill in a tunnel underwater and underground. Yeah.
It's called the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel in Norfolk, Virginia..and it's hell. The speed limit through the tunnel is 55 mph; but it's single lane, dark, and your radio goes out. I can understand how that can freak some people out, which is why on the road leading up to the tunnel V-DOT has exits and signs saying "Last Chance to Exit Before Tunnel" (translation: "If you're the type to panic, get off this road RIGHT NOW"). And yet, the LD-turned-FR doesn't heed any of these prominently placed warnings, because they don't know (or forget daily) that they're about to unleash hell in an underwater tunnel.
The locals who use the HRBT twice daily (and know the alternate routes around it, by the way) slam on their brakes as soon as it gets dark in the tunnel--so that the HRBT is lit with the eerie hellish red glow of local LDs riding their brakes in daily panic through the tunnel. It really does look like you're descending..albeit slowly and nerve-wrackingly..into Satan's Den. It's that antithetical Frightened Rabbit attempt at common sense again: "it got dark suddenly, I should stop", which is followed by the equally panicked realization that they really shouldn't stop. So the compromise is dropping suddenly from 55 to 30 mph..regardless of the tractor-trailers that use the tunnel 24/7. The LD-turned-FR does this the entire length of the HRBT, including the uphill trek at the end, completely ignoring the signs posted every 10 yards in official large black letters that yell "MAINTAIN 55 MPH IN TUNNEL."
I think I read somewhere that V-DOT will soon post signs on the HRBT that caution against people with heart conditions..not because of the tunnel, but because of the people who have to drive behind LD-turned-FRs.
Everyone knows the Distracted Driver, the Asshole Driver, and the plain old Bad Driver. But these other drivers are quite prevalent across the South (i.e., the entirety of Virginia). If you ever find yourself on a Southern road, remember these types..it might save your life! Or at least amuse you for a few seconds before you die.
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