Free Advice to Those Who Freely Employ a Certain Finger While Driving

Road work has caused hellish weekends locally for those folks traveling up the Northway. A recent 10 minute trip took us an hour, but my husband was dozing and I had an Elton John CD in the player so we were good. We were on our way to a wedding rehearsal and had plenty of time.

Eventually we got stuck in bumper to bumper traffic going north on the alternate suggested route (of course), sitting about four or five cars back from a red light. There is a median here, large enough for a car to fit comfortably without issue for merging and turning.

The light changed, and shortly thereafter I took my foot off the brake and began accelerating. Not very fast, but still moving forward.

Suddenly a truck flew out from somewhere on the left, into the median, and without hesitation into the lane I was moving forward in. Luckily I saw him in time and slammed on my brakes. I missed him by inches. Also luckily for me the car behind me saw him as well and narrowly missed rear-ending me.

I know some of you will accuse me of having road rage, but I freely admit to honking my horn. I didn't lay on it until everyone's ears bled, just honked it. It was a knee-jerk reaction.

His response, naturally, was to hang his arm out of his window and give me the finger.

Now, having driven for many many years, I am almost used to the rudeness and stupidity of drivers of this type. This time, however, the stupidity level of the driver made me laugh out loud.

He has his own business cleaning and maintaining pools, and his name and number are plastered all over his truck. Yes it was a local number, yes I wrote it down, and no I will not provide it here. The only clue I'll give is that he uses his first name in the ad on the back of his truck.

Will I ever use him if needed? Nope. If given the opportunity will I relate the story to family and friends? Yup. Did this local small business person just shoot himself in the foot with a whole bunch of potential customers who also have family and friends? Most certainly.

So maybe next time you want to be the cause of a potential accident and cannot take responsibility for your carelessness and/or blame the person you narrowly victimized, make sure you're not driving your company vehicle.

Be careful driving out there friends!

And watch out for the pool guy who advertises on his truck using his own name.