Unlike your previous Caddies, the CTS is actually quite a nimble-handling automobile, crisp of response and bereft of lard. I promise you, as Henry Leland is my witness, it will not tip over if you exceed 5 mph making the left-hand turn through the intersection. Even with your blue-rinse bouffant sprayed up to Jesus, the car's center of gravity will remain low enough to avoid a rollover incident.
The reason I bring this up is that the left turn arrow only remains illuminated for a brief period of time, and it is considered polite to let more than one automobile benefit from its warm, green glow.
I love ("love") folks in high performance sports cars that never get up to within 5 mph of the speed limit.
ReplyDeleteI also love folks in SUVs with 8" of shock travel who swerve well over the double yellow line to avoid a 1/2" deep pothole, or 3" long twig in the road.
Yeah, well I'm just glad that bitch is back up there in Hoosierland for the summer after terrorizing we Southrons for months.
ReplyDeleteHer favorite ploy here is to make haste in that lefty across three lanes and then stop. dead. at the entrance to Wallyworld so her Caddy doesn't go bump into the driveway ramp. That of course leaves those of us who took her at her word that she was actually, you know, turning...and followed nose to tail, leaving us stranded when she makes her mid-turn stop right dead in the path of two 18-wheelers and a hundred *other* blue-haired 'birds who have no intention of letting you impede their progress, and show every indication that they would be glad to broadside your family wagon to clear their path.
It's a silver CTS, right? If you don't kill that twit this summer, I'll take her out come winter. 'Course they're like shrivelly old roaches; squash a few and a hundred take their place.
AT
wv: ammopi...yes, please; I'll have a slice of .38+P. No wait, make it .45 ACP. With whipped cream.
I appreciate a good F250...mine being not much more than a street-legal skidder that gets work off-road weekly. It was pushing bow-waves & leaving a wake, hauling firewood this weekend. Thought that was what it was made for.
ReplyDeleteNeighbor has the 'bells & whistles' version of the 'off-road' package, complete with 4" lift, huge spinning pimp-daddy rims & low-profile street racing tires. It could never, ever go more than off the shoulder of a paved road, not that he'd deign to insult his prize by getting it dirty.
Bet his mom was driving that CTS.
Tam, I didn't know your were in Bowling Green this weekend.
ReplyDeleteThe old lady was waiting for a personal invitation to turn left at the light next to me. She was so short and the sun visor was down so I guess she couldn't see the green turn arrow for the first sixty seconds.
I gently taped my horn and pointed to the traffic light. She bobbed her little Q-tiped head and drove the land barge across the intersection slow enough that no one else got through, bless her heart.
We tend to be polite to these old women here because it's the right thing to do and because they tend to be packing the .45 their late husband brought back from the Pacific.
Gerry
What would I do for my daily smile without you.
ReplyDeleteSeventeen years have changed her...
ReplyDeleteShe is also the one that turn right into a parking lot, while doing so must come to a stop? WHILE STILL BLOCKING THE RIGHT LANE on a busy 50mph blvd?
ReplyDeleteDear God. My 15 y.o. subaru legacy ( none this outback raised suspension business) can do that turn at 30mph with no tire squealing or suspension distress nonsense. The exit was designed like that. There's no bump.
At least if SHE SIGNALED.
I swear to god, I think I would personally sponsor/pay a cop to follow people around and fine them for not signalling if I could.
Not signalling drives me nuts.
Yes that little wand thing has a purpose! To tell ME what IDIOCY YOU are planning.
Every Lexus I see in NJ includes a driver with a smartphone against his/her ear. Is the 30 seconds required to sync the bluetooth too much? How are these stupid people buying Lexi?
ReplyDeleteHere in NJ we are blessed with people who"go right" to turn left. They make sure no one is going to get around them in the intersection.
ReplyDeleteMy first wife's cousin once removed was a nun. At some point the convent shut down, and the remaining nuns decided that one of them needed to learn how to drive, and as the youngest, the job fell to "Sister" age 65.
ReplyDeleteShe had the greatest trouble at a light at Wesport Road near Louisville. It was designed to let one car through. When it turned green, she would look left, look right then check the light again, which had by then turned read again.
It took lots of encouragement for her to make it through.
I somehow get stuck behind her husband at least three times a week on the road to work. He's doing 35 in a 55. The very few remotely safe places to pass are not going to happen due to heavy traffic in the oncoming lane. So he putters the 15 miles, building up a very long line of angry drivers behind him. And then when he gets to the town, he makes the world's slowest right turn onto his next road.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous beat me to the Florida reference.
ReplyDeleteOne lone blue-hair in a caddy? You don't know how lucky you have it. They travel in flocks in the southland. And most of the ones in Florida can barely see over the dash, so I suppose the CTS is an improvement from that point of view.
Have none of you people read The Dog of the South???
ReplyDeletethe percentage of people who purchase sports cars and use them even within 1/3 of their design parameters is on a par with the percentage of Escalades and Hummers that ever get off road.
ReplyDeleteThe flip side of that coin are all the "Three-One-Two'ers" who come down to vacation at Lake Freemand and Lake Shafer and take the back roads because it's their 'shortcut'.
ReplyDeleteMan, do those people get bent when they get stuck behind my 26' field cultivator doing 18 mph as I'm moving from one farm to the next for...Oh, for at least 3 or 4 miles.
And YES I take my half out of the middle! I have a clue for them. Country roads are FOR Farm equipment, NOT ijits from the city looking for a place to get drunk and generally become a nuisance...
All The Best,
Frank W. James
This reminded me of a manual of [supposedly fake, but I`ve seen its examples being used] driving tips printed some years ago. I especially remember "how to make a left turn at any time" which might help little old ladies who are not from Pasadena.
ReplyDeleteWere she alive today, my Mom would've been sorely tempted to push her. Sadly, she's gone at the young age of 73. As for her driving technique, let's just say that the options were: 1, STOP; and, 2. WARP 9. I inherited her Plymouth Reliant (100 hp, 2.5l, fuel injected).
ReplyDeleteUlises from CA
We sent her there from Boulder.
ReplyDeleteYou left out two other Southern Driving Phenomena:
ReplyDeleteThe self-appointed hall monitors that roll 5 mph below the speed limit on multi-lane roads side-by-side... for miles.
And there's the ones that assume the left lane is to be used for talking / texting while driving only.
you all are so polite. My Dad was a career marine and could cuss like one. I grew up thinking everyone stuck there head out of the window and yelled at morons. it wasn't till much later that i realized that other families didn't have the fun we did while in the car. some of my fondest memories areundis hearing my Dad talk to and about other drivers.
ReplyDeleteOn more than one occasion I have lamented that none of the military surplus stores hereabouts sell roof-mounted rocket pods equipped with a full complement of Stinger missiles.
ReplyDelete"I said move that Caddy, lady!"
Back when I was doing a lot of touristing via VW Bus, I watched my mirrors and occasionally would pull over and let folks get by. From time to time somebody would ask me why.
ReplyDelete"Well, just figure that I'm lapped traffic, and I'm letting the front-runners get by."
My pet peeve is to be happily boiling along through curves and corners and overtake some sporty-looking rig whose driver's foot is glued to the brake pedal. They do get a bit perturbed when tailgated very, very closely. "Relax, fella; I'm just drafting on you, is all."
Of all the labels I could attach to my parents, "rolling roadblocks" is not one of them. Dad was a stock-car racer around the time he got married, and he may have taught mom how to drive properly. Plus, she learned to drive nearly anything with wheels. She got her chauffeurs license after we older kids left the nest, and taught driving and also drove buses for schools and casinos.
ReplyDeleteShe used to borrow my '57 ragtop, with the 500+hp big block. Car could put sunlight under the front wheels when pushed hard, but didn't faze her. Still driving professionally until her death from pancreatic cancer.
Dad was clocked by GPS at 117mph in his new 4wd Ranger. Just checking the performance after getting it broken in. He was 80yrs old, and still better than nearly everyone else out there.
Will
I know someone who thinks that "defensive driving" means "change lanes by drifting right in front of someone without signaling."
ReplyDeleteShe also drives with both hands at the 6 o'clock position, one on top of the other. Riding with her is a chance to practice the Serenity prayer. (And I mean the long version; look it up.)