Tag: driving

Just Tell Me Where To Go

~ JodiLea

Smart CompassA compass is as helpful to me as lipstick on a pig.

I need my buddy “Tim” to tell me where I need to go. Tim is the Englishman who lives inside my GPS unit and tells me what lane to be in and when to turn left.  He calls the freeway a “motorway” in an English (UK) accent. ( I don’t know why, but I find that cool)

When I turn too early, or not at all, Tim never hollers at me. He quietly re-calculates the route and instructs me how to get there from wherever I happen to be. Thank goodness somebody knows where I am!   So terrified of getting lost, I never drove anywhere outside of my town (on purpose), until Tim came along.

There are others* within my GPS that I can call on, who are entertaining, but tend to get on my nerves after 3 hours, so I usually return to reliable (and patient) Tim. Tim is not perfect. He often tries to get me to go strange and confusing routes. I guess these routes are shortcuts according to Tim, or he likes to mess with me. Either way, I ignore them when I happen to know where I am in relation to where I am going. This does not happen often, so when it does I feel pretty damn smart!

There are many voices I can buy from the website if I get bored with Tim.

* One is a Jamaican native who yells “turn the car around!” a lot. Then there’s Darth Vader – he tells me “your lack of faith is disturbing” when I don’t do exactly as he says. (I half expect to start choking) My granddaughter likes Billy Bob Thornton’s character from “Sling Blade” the best, who says, “Well, I guess you didn’t kill anybody” when you arrive at your destination.

Who tells you where to go?

photo credit: Su℮ ❥ via photopin cc

Objects in This Mirror Are Faster Then They Appear

~ JodiLea ~ 1 Comment

Maximum Speed Sign

Important rule in driver’s training – Check your blind-spot.  Very important rule for driving in California – Check your blind-spot TWICE.

I learned this last Thursday, as I drove up to my daughter’s place for Mother’s Day weekend.
I had gotten on the freeway and wanted to get over into one of the center lanes because I wouldn’t exit for some time, and I didn’t want to deal with merging idiots.

I, of course, looked in the mirrors and turned my head to check the blind spot, before moving over. I got 1/3 into the lane and the blast of an air-horn came from behind me as a white semi roared next to me on the left. The blue semi in the lane I had just exited, was along-side of me on the right. I straddled that white dashed line for at least 1/2 mile, willing my Honda Civic to be skinny by sucking in my stomach and chanting “Oh Sh!t, S!!t, Sh!t, Sh!t” through gritted teeth.

The blue semi took pity on me and moved over, giving me his lane. It took the rest of my trip (two and a half hours), to unfreak*. Was what happened my fault?  Was I the merging idiot?

Checking your blind spot tells you where folks are. Unfortunately, not how fast they are going.  Which is very important information to have, especially when very large vehicles are going 30 mph beyond the speed limit.  Semi’s and tractor trailers have a speed limit of 55 mph. And yet,  they travel at the speed of 70-80 mph. Even more amazing, is that you never see a big truck pulled over by the highway patrol. I don’t know if all states ignore speed limits, but California definitely takes ignorance to a new level.

So now I’m checking my mirrors and blind-spot twice. A habit I highly recommend you start practicing – before you become the filling for a Semi sandwich.

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* Word taken from the “Dictionary of Words That Should Be”