You Mean I Have to Share the Road with THIS Jerk??

This photo hardly does justice to the subject, but as you can tell, the circumstances were far from ideal: It was 7:29 this morning, there was a misty-drizzly action going on, and the light at 37th and Minnesota had just changed to green, meaning that the driver of the Volkswagen Beetle in front of me was compelled to floor it in order to, I dunno, get ahead of all the Saturday morning 7:29 a.m. traffic you see here.

Nor is the angle as advantageous as I would like, but perhaps it’s enough to set the scene: A few blocks farther south, this Beetle came flying past me in the right-hand lane. The speed limit at that point is 35; this driver was doing at least 40, maybe 45. Which is fine, except that the driver had to be about as blind as a blindfolded bat. You see the condition of the car’s back window? Well, except for a porthole scratched out in the side window and another on the driver’s side of the windshield, all of the car’s windows were in like condition.

Annoyingly, a few blocks north we encountered a southbound police car, but there was no joy there: The officer seemed not to notice that the driver’s field of vision was seriously compromised (a fancy way of saying nonexistent), and that he or she was continuing to drive in the 40-to-45-miles-per-hour range when the posted speed limit in this stretch is a mere 30 miles per hour.

Upon some reflection, I think I’d rather take my chances with a texting driver than this one.

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