February 24, 2002 – Well, shitty weekends aside (weekends usually suck for me), things are going ok. Not great, not good, not bad – just ok. I had multiple items irritate me this weekend, though.

First, Missouri is the Show Me state. Arkansas, I guess, is the Blow Me state. Oklahoma should be called the Drive-like-Shit state. I am sorry. People there can’t drive worth a damn. To illustrate, let me give some examples:

First, when turning, the proper process is:

Turn on your turn signal roughly 100 ft prior to the turn (I recall this clearly from driver’s ed so long ago), then, slow down to a reasonable speed and turn. Not across two or three lanes, mind you.

Do you think anyone in Oklahoma does this? No. The SOP there is:

Damn near stop in the middle of a busy street, get a confused look on your face, turn VERY SLOWLY off the road. And, if you choose to use the turn signal, don’t start it until at least half way through the turn. Turning across multiple lanes of busy traffic is acceptable.

How come if I remember the lesson in driver’s ed for turning after more than 15 years (and I took driver’s ed in Oklahoma), no one else here seems to know it or, if they do, cares to follow it? Needless to say, I have never seen ANYONE get a ticket there for improper turns. Seems that, in a state where quota systems for traffic tickets is the norm, cops would fill their quotas in a day or two by nailing idiot drivers AND make it a more pleasurable driving experience by either reinforcing proper driving etiquette and/or getting the idiot drivers off the road.

Here is a list of other things I have noticed specific to Oklahoma drivers:

- no one yields to exiting traffic on the service roads. It is required in Texas – the model by which the service roads in Oklahoma were build. Maybe people down south know something.

- no one yields the entrance lane on the highway when there are open lanes to the left of the entrance/exit lane. I can see this IF you are getting off the highway on the next exit but it almost never works out this way. It is always some idiot who refuses to show the least courtesy to other drivers who sits in the entrance/exit lane. Again, this is required in Texas.

- people in Oklahoma LOVE to sit in the passing lane and do the speed limit OR LESS. You can ride their ass, honk at them and flip them off but THEY NEVER GET IT. There are even signs now that say ‘slower traffic merge right’. Shows what a wonderful gift literacy is – too bad no Okies were good boys (or girls) for Santa that year. (Note: big rig drivers are really good about not doing this – a small (or should I say large) blessing when driving there).

- Smoking cars. Jeez. It is horrible there. The dumbass legislators recently stopped requiring vehicle inspections (they never did emission checks but now there are NO checks) so this will just get worse. I love driving down the road and some asshole in front of me has a car spewing more noxious fumes than a factory fire at RJ Reynolds. Supposedly, the cops can still impound a car that does this since it violate the state law requiring cars being operated on public thoroughfares to be in ‘proper working order’ but I have never seen anyone get pulled over.

Hmmm…that is about all I can think of. Too bad vehicular manslaughter is not legal there. ;)