Come Across in La Crosse

Have you ever witnessed dangerous or selfish driving? Have you ever said to yourself, “How did they get a license?” or “Where is a cop when you need one? “ Have you ever been so frustrated you feel like hitting the accelerator and smashing the car in front of you?
Well, I have and here are the things I have come across in La Crosse.
It seems if you are over the age of 60 and decide to drive on the highway it is a senior citizens right to go 40 miles an hour on the highway, or have their right directional on for over 3 miles. It also seems if you are under the age of 30, you have the ability to do one or more of the following in a moving vehicle. Texting or checking your email, eating, putting on make-up, balancing a checkbook, fumbling around looking for your IPOD, yelling and slapping your boyfriend/girlfriend, preparing your 2009 tax return, reading your favorite novel or engaging in public displays of affection that are rated way past PG.
People are also oblivious that there is a fast/passing lane. This is the farthest left lane on the highway. This lane is used to pass people or you are to be moving at a pace that exceeds the right lanes on the highway. They also seem to misunderstand how to merge onto a highway. Why is it so hard for people to accelerate and turn their head to “merge” into the flow of traffic?
If there is a wreck or a traffic stop people seem to be drawn to this as if it was the second coming of Christ, they slow down to 20 miles an hour on the highway to get a better view. Then on the other hand you have people you are in such a hurry to get a double expresso they are on the highway doing 70MPH, weaving through traffic on a dummy tire.
It has also been brought to my attention that La Crosse has a high population of height challenged people who can not see over their steering wheel and can barely push down the accelerator and then there are those who are sitting 2 inches from the windshield and still have to squint to see the sign for Wal-Mart.
I also find that people have a hard time performing the basics of driving such as riding their brake and there is no one in front of them for at least a half mile, taking more than 3 times to parallel park, refusing to turn right on red or scared to turn left from a one way street to another one way street, or are uncertain if their car takes unleaded or diesel.
Then you have the selfish driver who stops in the middle of the road blocking the traffic behind them to let out their passengers, or the ones who are parked in the middle of the road with their hazards on, so they can run into Jimmy John’s to satisfy a crave. How about when someone pulls out in front of you and then go’s under the speed limit. My favorite of all is when I am on Highway 16 and I see a car in front of me riding right next to another car, blocking traffic from getting around them.
These are the things that I have come across in La Crosse. These situations are aggravating and most of them can be avoided by implementing 2 things. The first is if people become aware of their surroundings on the road to better assess their driving habits and the second is if people realized that they are not the only one’s on the road and should act accordingly. Driving is already a headache; do we really need to add to the problem with an obvious disregard to other drivers on the road?