Life With Frenchie

I live in the Mecca for anyone over, oh, let’s say 45! That means, per capita, Florida has more crappy drivers than anywhere on this planet. Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating, but for anyone who’s driven in the Sunshine State, I’m sure they can feel my pain.

It’s not always the old folks that forget the basics or are just plain braindead when they get behind the wheel. But, for the sake of continuing my ranting about old people and 2 tons of metal on wheels, we’re going to assume they are.

I both live and work in close proximity to a major US Highway that is 3-4 lanes in both directions. The speed limit on this road is between 45 and 55 MPH. The road has a median, sometimes concrete, so that you either have to go to a traffic light or a legal u-turn to reach places on the opposite side of the road.

In my case, I work on the northbound side of this road. Within a couple hundred of feet is a legal u-turn lane. There is another legal u-turn a few hundred feet further north. My problem is the people that are turning north onto the road and then want to make a legal u-turn. These people seem to think that the only way that you can do this is to cross four lanes of traffic at once and that it is way too much to drive an extra 200 feet and make that same u-turn, thereby allowing them to safely, and sanely, make their way across four lanes of 55 MPH traffic! Thus, it often happens that the person desiring to go south on this road sits and waits for ALL traffic to clear so they can make their way across all four lanes. This causes those of us who have more sense and realise it is a lot safer to slowly cross the lanes, perhaps even drive the extra couple hundred feet or, heaven forbid, even go even further to the traffic light to make the u-turn, to wait for minutes at a time…like 5 minutes or more! Yeah, yeah. I’m impatient. I know! But, when you’re talking traffic - rush hour traffic at that - 5 minutes is an eternity! But for anyone who knows these kinds of roads, you know how frustrating it can be to sit and wait for someone who does not understand the concept of merging with traffic and progressing your way across the road instead of trying to take it all at once.

I’m going to have a freakin’ aneurysm driving in Florida!