I’m looking around for a Stinger missile. It’s not because of al-Qaida, ISIS or Donald Trump. It’s the tailgaters who have taken over our beloved country. If I can find a Stinger at my next South Carolina gun show, Route 1 will look like Iwo Jima.
Talk about road rage. I drove on Sunday to Bath from Camden, a 45-minute drive. For virtually every inch of the trip, I had some moron driving a car-length behind me. Look, I am no Uncle Dudley driver and have more speeding tickets than you can imagine. When one tailgater-moron finally turned off, that space was filled by a new moron.
I am sorry, but the morons have taken over the highways. They used to be out once a week, hiding in their underground caverns the rest of the time. Now they are out around-the-clock.
I first noticed the driving morons in suburban Massachusetts. They were usually teenagers in junkers or pickup trucks. Instead of passing, they would see how close they could get to your car.
Why?
Did they think you would speed up just to satisfy them? Did they think you would swerve to the side of the highway so they could get to their bowling alley 33 seconds earlier?
I assumed that they were daydreaming about a NASCAR career in their feeble little minds. In NASCAR, they call it “drafting.” On Route 1, we call that “mindless and dangerous.”
Now they defy classification. They can be old or young, male or female, in pickups, vans and sedans. They are all morons. Driving one car-length off my bumper makes both my car and the moron’s car more likely to get into an accident if a unicorn, truck, deer or German shepherd dart in front of my car. And you know what they would say after they smash into your car?
“I just couldn’t stop in time.”
This is an all-weather problem. I have been tailgated in rain, fog, snow and ice. Morons.
As God as my witness, I was driving by Rockland High School this week when a woman in a van pulled to within a car’s length behind me. I was driving at 5 mph over the speed limit. I looked in the rearview mirror. She had one hand on her phone. She had another fixing her hair. That left her exactly no hands for the steering wheel, which traditionally steers a motor vehicle.
Naturally, she had a dog in the car. Naturally, she had a few children in the car. I am developing the theory that these morons hate their lives so much that they seek an accident in their car so they don’t have to go to the vet, school, market, gas station, dentist’s office or the pool hall. They have had it with their meaningless lives and want me to help end their stress and agony.
Since I don’t have a Stinger missile in the car, when I am confronted by still another moron, I simply drop my speed by 10 mph. If that doesn’t work, I drop it another 10 mph. I used to slam on the brakes just for laughs, but too many drivers are armed now.
It’s not just me, baby. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has reported that 40 percent of all auto accidents involve tailgating. According to an analysis of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System, traffic fatalities in the United States totaled 42,624 in 2006. Of those, 384 people died where “Following Improperly” was noted as the cause, and there were 40 fatalities where the violation charged was “following too closely.”
Tailgaters are more dangerous than ISIS.
Tailgating is more dangerous than texting at the wheel.
A study released by a San Diego-based company that manufactures driver-monitoring systems reported that when it comes to big-truck crashes, distracted driving isn’t really the major cause of accidents. Guess who? According to the study done by Drivecam.Com, the most serious perilous driving activity is following too closely. About 27 percent of accidents were caused because of tailgating. Distracted driving (texting and handheld cellphone calls) was fourth. The study covered 17 million driving events from 2 billion driving miles.
So there.
Want more? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has reported that almost one-third of all rear-end collisions in the United States are caused by following too closely, or tailgating.
I think the solution is higher vigilance by the police. When was the last time you saw anyone ticketed for following too closely? I think a little well-placed police brutality by the side of the road would help us all against these morons.
But I am still shopping for that Stinger.
Emmet Meara lives in Camden in blissful retirement after working as a reporter for the Bangor Daily News in Rockland for 30 years.