Well, back in the good ol' U. S. of A. it came to pass, fairly frequently, that I would get a bad case of the redass at other drivers. Sometimes I would begin shouting at them in tongues, (within the safety of my own car.)

But, here in Pura Vida land, I have turned over a new leaf and I try not to get torqued up over traffic events ... until this week.

It started right away as I passed through the toll booth of Hwy 27, in Atenas, headed to San Jose. Another little car came out of an adjacent toll booth a few seconds before I left mine and he started down the entrance ramp ahead of me. Down hill. Steeply. All set up so that you could easily get up to speed (only 70 kph at this location) to merge with any traffic.

Nah. This phenom of the driving arts poked down the hill and then at the Ceda (yield) sign CAME TO A COMPLETE STOP.

Me? I was flying down that hill, looking to the side for traffic (there was none) so that I could make the decision to merge ahead or behind any traffic. Instead, as I finally paid attention to what was supposed to be an empty ramp in front of me, I had to slam on the brakes to avoid ramming Einstein. 

From his dead stop the clown swiveled around in his seat to gawk up the road to see if some nasty car or truck was fixin to try to hit him. Only after he had triple checked the emptiness of the roadway did he risk brushing against the accelerator pedal and he oozed out onto the road.

Some evil spirit tried to fire me into a state of rage but I resisted and simply commented on the other driver's mother's occupation as I blew past him. Oh, well, into every life a little rain ... and all that stuff.

Have you noticed how unbelievably slowly many many trucks plod up the hills on the highways here? I mean, hey, I lived in California for quite a few years and on those serious mountain highways, if you weren't breaking the speed limit, semis would run right over you. It can be done. Those really big trucks can go really fast uphill. Does this mean that the truck drivers are just doing the snail act to piss me off? Well, maybe, but shouldn't they try to make up for lost time when going downhill on the other side?

No. I think they generally go slower downhill than they do going uphill. How? Why? DRIVE, dammit! If that piece of junk you're piloting has such crappy brakes that you can't control it going downhill at any speed above 10 kph, then: a). your rolling scrap heap cannot possibly have passed its RITEVE (safety) inspection this year, so, b). just drive that piece of shit off the road and wreck it. Maybe you can buy a real truck with the insurance money.

Fortunately, the tollroad has frequent passing lanes allowing all of us driving at the blazing maximum speed of 80 kph (50 by god miles per hour!) an opportunity to scoot around the highway sloths. 

Speaking of passing lanes, here in Costa Rica, they always end with plenty of notification coming at you from both road signs and from warning lines painted on the pavement. In other words, unless you are asleep (or on your fucking phone, you shithead) there is no way to not know that your lane is about to vanish. You'd think.

All of this end-of-lane awareness stuff doesn't really work though if the rutabega operating a vehicle has zero sense of depth perception. Yeah, on this fine day a turd in a BMW SUV was riding my tail and he kept waiting until all of the "Lane Ends" warnings and the Yield markings had flown by. Then he'd jerk his jerk-wagon over into the right lane, floor it, and get about 2/3 of the way past me before he realized that he was staring directly at a guard rail, whereupon he'd toss out the anchor and drop back on my tail. Over and over. Don't animals learn from their errors?

Well, I don't know ... because we all rolled into the tollgate complex near MultiPlaza. He went left for a booth and I went to the far right QuickPass lane.

As I picked my booth/lane, tightly surrounded by traffic all around, a box truck was slowly pulling through ahead of me. Too slowly. So slowly that just as the nose of his truck reached the gate, it lowered onto his bumper and he continued for about two feet, snapping the gate off.

Now, people, in case you don't know it, these gates are made out of soft plastic and they're designed to snap off cleanly without doing significant damage to their mechanism or to your vehicle. If it happens, let it go. It happens every day. Move along.

This truck stops dead in the lane and I'm trapped behind him. Two, three, four, a dozen cars and trucks pile up behind me. "Hey man ... move the truck over to the side." *beep beep*

Nothing. Then the driver's door on the truck opens. "No! Don't get out. There's no booth attendant. Just get out of the way." *HONK HONK*

Sir Thinksalot, the driver, moseys up to the front and stands there staring at the gate, like a goat looking at a watch. Everybody is honking. A cop rolls up in the next lane ... and watches. Oh, yeah, I forgot -- cops are hired to drive around in their cool cars with the emergency lights all flashing, going nowhere in particular. They don't even do donuts. They just drive around. Then the passenger door of the truck opens.

"No! Don't get out. Get out of the way you flaming cretins!" Now everybody is honking.

The passenger s-l-o-w-l-y walks to the back of the truck AND OPENS THE DAMN BACK DOORS! He's going to inspect the load for damage!

That ripped it. I was full tilt boogy flipped out. I was ready to pop a blood vessel. The cops seemed amused. Patricia, my co-pilot, seemed aghast that the Incredible Hulk had just materialized in the seat next to her.

And suddenly ...

The little voices in my head said, "Pura Vida, Mae. Tranquilo." That's right. I had no place to be. What do I care if that DUMB SHIT sits there for the rest of the day?

I'm tellin' ya. This Costa Rica life is really making me into a nice person. As I eventually rolled past the plodding former lane blocker I almost didn't flip him off. Pura Vida indeed!

Toll Road Followup

Award:

She's out there. La gran estúpida.

This really happened, this week:

Coming south, through the West Little York Toll Plaza, I'm in the Easy Tag Only lane and the usual morons are tying up traffic as they get into the Tag Only lane and then discover (or is it "discover" since I suspect that a lot of this is intentional) that they are in the wrong lane ... and they have to then block everyone while they try to nudge their way into one of the adjacent cash lanes.

So this woman in front of me, with an Easy Tag plainly visible on her windshield, begins to roll smartly along with the traffic as the morons clear away from in front of us.

She gets up to the Easy Tag reader and STOPS!?! (whereupon, I almost rear-ended her; and the guy behind me almost rear-ended me; and the guy behind him ... ad infinitum)

No horn from me, because I'm a REFORMED Road Rage Psychopath and every person has the right to drive safely and with the level of conservatism to which they are comfortable (gack! I want to retch every time I parrot those "good driver" platitudes.)

Away she crept from her stop at the reader. The toll gate went up (don't get me started -- yes, the damn things are back) she rolled up even with the gate and SHE STOPPED AGAIN.!! That ripped it.

She got the horn. I almost got rear-ended, again, and the other good drivers went wild with their horns.

She got moving, so out we all roll. I passed her and looked over to lay my most evil, rotten, "You're sooooo stupid!" dirty look on her but she won't look my direction. Ms. Gotta-stop has the pedal to the metal and is going to break the speed laws. On a mission.

Yeah, genius, stop twice in the toll gate but then get out there and drive 80 miles an hour while everyone else is doing 65-75. Makes perfect sense -- NOT.

That's O.K., I'll probably pass her in the next tool plaza after she stops suddenly, again, and causes a 37 car pileup. I'll save my "look" for then.

The Stir Star Awards (Toll Road Division)

For those of you who don’t have toll roads or may not even know what they are, please indulge me. Read on. You might recognize a stirring performance that you’ve seen elsewhere.

The guy in the full service pay-lane that waits until he is stopped in front of the toll booth before he leans over to fish out his wallet; and, then he has to dig around in it to come up with the appropriate folding money.

Why am I in the full service lane anyway? Ya gotta be here in Houston to know. At some toll plazas (like the West Little York, on the West Sam Houston) if you are getting on the toll road at Little York, to go south, you are barred from using the main automatic lanes. And, the toll road authority brain trust has decided to only install a single automatic lane for EZ-Tag and that usually backs up beyond belief. Thus, if you want to get home while supper is still hot, it is quicker to go to a different lane. Sometimes the full service lanes look like they’re moving faster. That’s when I end up there.

Now, why is it such a reach for me to expect a person to plan ahead just a little … and BE CONSIDERATE (you clod!) of the dozen cars behind you. We don’t need to watch you finger through a wad of bills in your wallet while you select THE special dollar that you’ve been saving for years, just in case you ever have to pay a toll. Get that shit out before you even start to drive, dunce boy.

Taking your foot off the gas at the electronic toll gates, over on the EZ-Tag-only side.

Oh, all right, these people probably only deserve 1 stir, but this is a pet peeve of mine.

And, admittedly, there are signs that tell you to slow down and even signs that tell you to slow to 45 but this is the only State on Earth where some fools actually do it. Some states (e.g., Illinois) have even built the automatic lanes far away from the cash lanes, separating them by berms and trees. They command you to not slow down.

So, WHY do so many Houstonians slow down?

Are you afraid that the Tag reader won’t be able to read your Tag? It works on radio waves, Einstein. They’re travelling at more than 186,000 miles per second. Do you really think you can drive fast enough so that the speed of light waves cannot get down to your car and then be received in the return signal?

Scared of other drivers changing lanes right up at the readers and that they then might side-swipe you? We’re only changing lanes because people like you are impeding the flow of traffic when you slow down, pudding head.

And, what’s with you people at the Westheimer Plaza? What is so special about your fears and foibles that you need to slow down to stop & go for the automatic lanes? Who starts that mess? Please, some cowboy, shoot them.

Stop it. Just stop it. Keep your stinking foot smashed down on that stinking little narrow pedal on the right.

On the side of the toll road where EZ is mixed in with Full Service, getting into the EZ-Tag-Only lane when you don’t have an EZ-Tag.

Are you truly that unaware of your surroundings? Or are you just a mega-turd that thinks he’s getting to the head of the line … screw the rest of the world.

What happens, is that all of the lanes are filled up with long lines of cars needing to pay cash. In our single lonely EZ-Tag lane, the traffic usually moves significantly faster because we don’t have any clown digging under his seat for loose change.

Note to HCTRA: I’ve written to you jack-wads twice about leaving gates down across EZ-Tag lanes. One of your little minions even admitted that she couldn’t think of any reason why they are left operational. TAKE THOSE DAMNED GATES OUT!!!!!

Back to the story …

So, while we are moving reasonably steadily (5 mph,) down the long canyon created by lines of cash-pay cars, inevitably some anti-Mensa either doesn’t notice that he’s in the EZ-Tag Only lane or he’s trying to get to the head of the class. Either way, he then tries to push his way out of the Tag lane and into one of the cash lanes.

But it can’t be done. The cash lanes are at a dead stop and they only creep along one car length at a time. We, then, are trapped behind this clever person, building up our own traffic backup.

Please, oh please, give me Sidewinder missiles on my next car.

Stopping fully in front of the toll gate in an EZ-Tag lane when you have an EZ-Tag.

Ohmigod! What are you thinking!?! Oh … right. You haven’t the capacity to think.

Very close to these people are the folks that make a mistake in lane selection and then not only stop, but they begin to back up. I’m not making this up.

Patricia and I were driving back home one day, at about 75 mph (oh, get over it). She was driving and talking to me. I was lazily semi-focused on the road ahead as I listened. Something caught my attention. Something didn’t look right in the traffic way up ahead at the toll plaza.

Once the old synapses processed the message and I shouted, “Car backing up!” Pat barely had time to react. She got into a different lane and we went by that 7-stir. As we sped away down the road, I watched him in the side view mirror, expecting to see a fireball as he got run over by an 18 wheeler but, alas, no fireworks that day.


That’s the rant for the day. Many of the wackos that I mentioned in earlier posts about Houston drivers are doing their surface street tricks up on the toll roads, also. Sometimes it is just too bizarre to even award stirs.

Why are they breathing my air?