When it comes to any kind of weather, San Diego drivers are a bunch of morons. Take today’s rain event. In most places it would just be raining, here it gets a logo on the news and is an Event. They’ve been predicting this rain for the past week, though the meteorologists started with a 100% chance of rain last week then dropped it to 80% last night. Think about that for a second. Your job is to predict the weather yet your certainty is highest when you are least likely to be right, then when the storm is practically on top of us you vacillate and say, “Oh…um…now I’m not so sure.” But let’s forget about the weather forecast and focus on the state of preparedness of our drivers. We’ll start from the most logical position and work down.
Logical driver: It’s raining, so I drive slow and put on my wipers. When I want to change lanes I use my turn signal.
Semi-logical driver: Lights and wipers on, maybe I’ll drive a little slower.
Functionally incompetent driver: Water fall from sky! Me leave sunroof open. Ha ha! Wet hair!
San Diego driver: [drool spattering on pant leg]
I can’t tell you how many people I saw this morning with no headlights and no wipers on, despite the darkness and heavy rain. My fifteen-minute commute took an hour and fifteen minutes. What about Chet, our stereotypical San Diegan, driving his desert-racing pickup at eighty miles an hour around the corner? Did he lift his work boot off the accelerator even slightly, or take off his wrap-around sunglasses? No, Chet was surprised when he was hurtling sideways towards an embankment. I can sum up the average San Diegan’s response to rain in one phrase: “Solo spin-out into the ice plant.”
[deep breath] Despite my rising blood pressure and a throbbing vein in my forehead, I did finally manage to get to work, but not before I snapped a picture of a local driver in the rain, skidding sideways down the road. Say hello to Chet.
Writer, architect, father, husband.
Let’s just hope none of those drivers…especially Chet!…ever see a half inch of snow on a road!!!
I was thinking the same thing. I lost track of the number of people driving without headlights. Saw three cars spun out on an embankment on the 8 plus another accident near the 805 split. Oy.
I think I know his brother, Chaz. PS, I have accidentally become one of those drivers that I hate that don’t turn their lights on. My car’s automatic headlights only turn on if it is pitch black!! So now I have to manually turn them on..ugh…! It’s like, so much work! OMG!
Manual headlights? What is this, 2005?
Peter Soutowood