Preliminary testing seems to bear out the hypothesis that the Broad Ripple driver's brain is, in fact, water soluble.
The same people that will fearlessly send their Prii and Subarus hurtling down ice- and snow-covered residential side streets at speeds best expressed with Mach numbers will slow to velocities more typical of wounded escargot should thawed precipitation fall from the sky.
It seems to have an effect on pedestrians, too, as even adults with apparently normal cephalic development will suddenly lunge into traffic in the middle of the block as though they were slow children at play chasing their ball in front of a Buick.
I believe that rain reminds the hindbrain of when we lived in shallow water, and were considering growing legs and crawling slowly up onto the dry land.
ReplyDeleteI used to think it was a factor of the thin air around here, but I guess not.
Pffft, in Broad Ripple the rain just harshes their mellow. You have to drive slow or you may knock your bong over.
ReplyDeleteShootin' Buddy
Irrespective of the legal pitfalls, wouldn't these...people, I'll use that term for them, be excellent practice for your bowling pin matches?
ReplyDelete100 points for pedestrians
ReplyDelete100 points for children playing +50 if they are chasing a ball
bing,bing,bing.bing,bing bing 1000 points for patchouli smelling hippies drinking their bong water!!!
East of I-35 and north of I-40, these afflictions seem much more common.
ReplyDeleteIt is already proven here in the ATL that the exposure of road surfaces to water releases moron gas.
ReplyDeleteCaptcha: tailling - irony, thy art Google
California has moron gas released upon rain, or when ever a car is pulled over to the side for any reason. It may be because of the concentration of lawyers in So. Cal. but ambulances constipate traffic for hours after the ambulance is packed up and back to the station.
ReplyDeleteCould it be the low-pressure that incites them to lift-off the pedal? As the scent of dirt and earth rises up to meet their nostrils, in a haze they assume they are falling.
ReplyDeletePffffft. Nothing, absolutely nothing, beats the penchant the illegals have for driving under 18 wheelers (thus shutting the interstates down) at the first sign of rain.
ReplyDeleteNary a cloud in the sky--July and August in Seattle are actually dryer than the same months in Tucson--so I can only conclude that we have a special type of moron gas here that is released by sunshine. Today Mrs. Drang and I witnessed 3 different vehicles in the same parking structure act as though the act of backing out of a parking space was akin to landing on a carrier deck in the dark, under blackout conditions, in a hurricane. Back straight up 3 feet, stop, pull forward one foot while turning the wheel, back straight up three more feet, pull forward one more foot while turning the wheel...
ReplyDeleteThen there were the folks who figured that the arrows pointing at them meant they were going the right way...
And the ancients who felt their econo-boxes had the maneuvering characteristics of a garbage scow... and, halfway through turning into the lane I was trying to leave from, saw me and froze, waiting for me to leave so I could get our of their way, even though doing so would require driving through them and the people stuck in traffic behind them...
Yeah, I'm lovin' humanity today...
Uhh, not to be toooooo obvious, but aren't you a Broad Rippleian now?
ReplyDeleteAround here, it's the exact opposite. Even if it's raining so hard that visibility can be measured in feet instead of miles, people will still drive like they're on the Autobahn on a sunny afternoon.
ReplyDeleteAdd a little snow? People act like it's the Apocalypse.
I was on 465 on the west side at about 11:30 a.m. this morning, in the worst rain I'd see all day. Visibility was less than 1/10 of a mile -- basically nil, plus the mist kicked up by everyone's tires -- and maybe one in 20 cars had their lights on. I pulled over for several minutes because I was terrified I would rear-end someone. Idiots don't realize the lights aren't so you can see, they're so you can be seen.
ReplyDeleteProbably don't signal their lane changes, either.
Heh. Slow children playing. I get it.
ReplyDeleteMy dad always used to wonder out loud who the deaf child was on our block.
I'd always reply, "What?"
Sometimes I'd get him twice in a row!
The problem is the cerebral swelling brought on by the hippies' extreme alergy to water.
ReplyDeleteWait till the bike lanes go in.
ReplyDeleteOh, and can I please shoot the SOB of a so-called civil engineer who decided the Monon would be a GRADE-LEVEL crossing at Broad Ripple Avenue?
Moron gas.........bubbling to the surface of.........the Potomac. A monster deposit. This could explain very much.
ReplyDelete@Nathan
ReplyDeleteI think that if you wanted to get grade separation at B.R. AV, you'd have to put the avenue on an overpass. Depressing it would put it dangerously close to the water table. (Note that the original Monon contour slopes down from 86th Street to White River, then upward to about 46th Street.)
It was easier when there were still trains running. ;o)
Overpass is exactly what I had in mind.
ReplyDelete"I think that if you wanted to get grade separation at B.R. AV, you'd have to put the avenue on an overpass."
ReplyDeleteWhy not a pedestrian bridge?
...velocities more typical of wounded escargot...
ReplyDeleteTruly a wordsmith. I LOLed.
tweaker
Them escargot are dangerous when wounded ...
ReplyDelete