Drivers Who Annoy Me - One of My BIGGEST Pet Peeves

Today I am going to write about one of my biggest pet peeves – driving while playing games – with other drivers.

My Dad had an annoying habit of driving in the left-hand lane of a four-lane highway at the same speed as the driver on his right. If the driver on his right slowed down, my dad slowed down. If the driver on his right sped up, my dad sped up.

As a child I was fascinated by this game and I watched his face in the rear view mirror whenever he played it. As the cars lined up behind him, his cheeks rose higher and higher and the grin that spread across his face grew wider and wider as the line of cars behind him grew longer and longer. I figured he was probably playing some kind of follow the leader game, and he was winning.

Faces of the drivers behind us were contorted into all kinds of shapes, and the gestures they made were frightful.

The drivers in the cars next to us were sometimes oblivious to what Dad was doing. Other times I'm sure they couldn't help but wonder if Dad was stalking them, despite the fact that Mom was sitting in the passenger seat.

Having grown up with a father who loved playing the game I now refer to as the "Control Road Antagonist Ploy" game (CRAP for short), I learned that other people enjoyed controlling the road as well, and I discovered that my father's idea of enjoyment was diametrically opposed to my own idea of fun.

I hate to judge anybody, though, so I'd like to give those other annoying drivers the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they are the daydreamers among us, taking a leisurely drive down a crowded highway, oblivious to the tantrums being thrown in cars around them. Maybe I am just being hypercritical.

All these many many years I sincerely believed in the goodness of other drivers UNTIL I spoke with my brother-in-law, Craig, about this issue. When I told him my theory of what I believed to be a game drivers played when they speed up to join a slow driver on their right, he acknowledged that he played that game all the time. I knew it! I knew they were doing it on purpose.

So I've been thinking about how to out-annoy them. And here's what I've come up with – an ear-shattering horn that looks like a gun. I roll down my window and aim, and as the sound comes out of the pseudo gun, out pops a flag that says, "You win! Now move on!" If only I could figure out how to get between them and the car next to them.