Geezer with a Grudge: Cold Weather Insanity

Oct 11, 2012

Cold Weather Insanity

I have got to get some kind of helmet cam going again. My ride into work today was crazier than bumper cars at an ABATE beer bust. People crossing 3 lanes to exit and stopping in the middle of the freeway to backup when they missed the exit. This is why Californians started carrying guns on the road. Someone has to remove these idiots from the gene pool. The police are hiding behind signs out in the boondocks, where it's safe. The freeway has become a real freeway; with emphasis on the "free" part. If you ever possessed delusional idealism about how the free market is lubricated by the "natural human rational desire to optimize personal benefit," you're either a distracted driver or purely superstitious. People are crazy. Dumb and dumber.

It would be fun to film a series of commutes and comment on the lunatics for something to post on YouTube. I will always be amazed by people who can't merge but who think they are in control of their vehicles tailgaiting at 70mph and 15 feet behind a car or truck. There is a reason Americans are 23rd in math skills.

2 comments:

Brandon Sommers said...: Well I don't think it's the 'cold weather' that brings out a certain insanity about drivers (except for the first time in the season where the ice makes the road really slippery but no one wants to give full appreciation to that) as I see this all year round...but yeah tailgating at high speeds and very short distances has really pissed me off.

I always leave early enough, so I'm never in a rush, and I enjoy driving and it's almost therapeutic for me (except when people tailgate me), so I adhere to the speed limits, and I recognize the rest of the world no longer cares, as every car passes me in any lane that's open. But when they ride my ass, I have a tendency to communicate back with them, by very abruptly breaking a decent amount (in control enough to resume accelerating right away if things don't go as planned), which in turn makes the tailgater break or swerve a little. I do this often (maybe once every 3 or 4 commutes) in my car, but for the first time ever a few days ago I did it on my bike. I don't know what I was thinking, as my back end fish tailed a bit, and I'm not at all that kind of a reckless driver on a bike, but it sure scared the crap out of the woman behind me who as she passed me put her hand up and looked apologetic as to say "sorry."; 10/13/12, 10:37 PM
T.W. Day said...: I'm probably too willing to let a tailgater rearend my Ford Escort. Someone bashed the rear fender in a parking lot years ago and I'm up for letting some douchebag buy me a new car and pay something for my pain and suffering. I'm not up for that experiment on the bike, though.; 10/29/12, 11:03 AM

The Geezer Story

I stumbled upon this column name (Geezer with a Grudge) almost 20 years ago, in 1999. The first Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly editor I worked with, in late 1999, complained that the magazine was getting no mail and the editors wanted to know if any readers were still out there. I fired off a sarcastic note, as a joke, intended to provide a little humor and some feedback. He published it as an article and later called me to say he'd received more mail on that letter than he'd received in the past year! I followed that with an offer to write a monthly column attempting to piss off a particular section of the magazine's readership to see if that tactic would generate some mail.

It did, probably more regularly than the magazine wanted at times, and I wrote a monthly column for MMM until the magazine died in 2018.

I plan to post an occasional old Geezer article into the blog, followed by short comments about the current status of my perspective on our activity/sport/vehicle of choice.