Day 22 Death Race 2011, School-Zone Style

I planned to go to a morning yoga class today, but after the school run, all I wanted to do was get off the road. Is everyone rushing out for free McDonalds coffee?? Are they all on crack??  (Are those two things related?)

Today I witnesssed the following:

-one driver clearing his windshield of ice, with his bare hand, WHILE HE WAS DRIVING.

-two drivers making left-turns without looking at on-coming traffic, and without there being a sufficient break in on-coming traffic to do so safely, which they’d have known if they’d looked. Which is probably why they didn’t.

-numerous drivers blasting right through the school cross-walk. Nice.

-one particularly unpopular lad, so determined to turn left out of the school parking lot that he had a line-up of at least 15 cars behind him, drivers growing more vocally irate by the millisecond. Turning RIGHT at that spot is a challenge. Left is usually impossible. One car finally squealed over the median to get around him. I’ve timed it: he waited longer than it takes to turn right and go all the way around the park with the lights.

-and the deadliest of all, teenagers. The first time I almost killed one, I was sitting at the afore-mentioned intersection, waiting to turn right out of the school parking lot, craning my neck to the left to find a break in the traffic, when I saw an opening. Inching forward at about 0.5 km/hr, suddenly, out of nowhere, a skateboarder whips around me from the sidewalk on the right, slamming his hand on my hood and grinning as he passed. HOLY $#!& I was wobbly for hours.

But then it happened again. And again, plus once with a kid on a bike. It’s never the same kid twice. I don’t get it. It’s not like they’re all getting killed; we’d have heard the sirens. It’s as if they have to take turns or something. Maybe there’s a roster. “Good news, Braydon/Hunter/Carter/Dylan, you’re up for Monday’s Idiot Skateboard Kid role. Good luck! Don’t forget to sign your organ donor card.”

But I’m on to them. Now I wait for the split-second when they’re almost in front of me, then I lean on the horn and watch them soil themselves. I hope I scare the crap out of them, ’cause they sure scare the crap out of me.