Next on my list is traffic.  Now I don’t really care about idiots that cut you off or people who lose track of themselves and do something stupid. Heck, I do that kind of thing pretty often myself.  Everyone does.  What drives me nuts are the people who think they are being responsible and polite but really are just screwing the guy 5 cars behind him.  When you choose to hold up traffic to let someone make a left in front of you, you aren’t helping someone at no expense. Unless there is no one behind you, (and then why wouldn’t you just get the hell out-of-the-way), you are holding up others to the advantage of someone else and your own ego.  Sure, it makes you feel better to help out the cute girl in the red car trying to turn left into busy traffic but the service guy 6 cars back that misses the next light and then is late for his appointment costing him aggravation or money is paying for your good deed.  And there is the guy that slowly creeps through an intersection in the name of safety or caution or fear affording the folks at the end of the line the joy of sitting through another light.  To be safe you need two seconds between you and the car in front of you at higher speeds.  Pulling through an intersection does not require three or five car lengths.  It barely requires one.  If your reactions are so slow that you honestly need to let three car lengths go before you pull through the intersection, hire a driver.  When the car in front of the car in front of you pulls the foot off the brake you do the same.  When the car in front of you starts to roll you do the same.  The natural delay in reaction times will allow for about a car length.  For every extra car length you allow there is one car at the end of the left turn lane that did not get through and that is your fault.  It is a simple concept.  Don’t leave empty spaces and you make it possible for more people behind you to make it home in time to see their daughter leave for school or son leave on his first date.  They might make it in time to see their youngest before she goes in for surgery at Children’s. And it is doable if you just drive like you are in somebody’s way.  Because, you are.

But that is not nearly my most pet of pet peeves.