Just last week, a car had missed their turn on the motorway, so decided to REVERSE up the hard shoulder.

I’ve seen a lot of bad things. But one that has always stuck with me was a guy studying.

I’m not talking about glancing down at a book. He had a textbook propped up on his steering wheel and was using a highlighter to mark in the book.

During morning rush hour (a near-standstill occasionally broken by brief periods of 10mph movement), I once saw a woman eating a bowl of soup/oatmeal/whatever while steering with her elbows.

It seemed to be a regional norm to eat breakfast in the car because a 20 mile commute generally took 1.5-3 hours and often moved slower than a walking pace, but that was the only time I’d ever seen someone eating food that required a dish and utensil.

I was on the beltway one night in a construction zone. They had jersey walls (concrete barriers) instead of cones and barrels to shift traffic. The SUV in front of me had not been weaving or worrying me at all when it drifted into the jersey wall in the left and just ground along it doing about 70. I expected them to jerk the wheel the other way, but they didn’t. After a few seconds, they drifted back to the center of the lane. Just as I was thinking good on them for not panicking, they slammed back into the jersey wall and rode it until it ended. Their car was scraped all to hell. They had to have fallen asleep (passed out drunk). The grinding noise of car on concrete and flying sparks were too obvious to not be noticed by a conscious driver. I backed way off and fortunately was nearing my exit.

I was on a highway doing around 60 when the car in front of me suddenly spun around in a 360 and stopped. Luckily they were some distance in front and there was no other traffic. When I passed, it was a teenage boy in the passenger and his grandmother driving. She was yelling at him and reaching down between them trying to do something. I think he had pulled the e-brake just to see what would happen.

My dad. He drove the wrong way on a highway, fell asleep at the wheel, and unknowingly ran from the cops.

To this day, my dad doesn’t believe me that he’s ran from the cops twice.

Since none of you know my dad, imagine if Mr Rodgers were cranky, racist, and stubborn.

Cops on laptops/phones while driving on the highway and getting a pass literally every time they’re driving distracted and kill or injure someone.

Every single year in my city someone gets smoked by a cop car/SUV, and the internal investigations always determine via CCTV + phone activity logs that yes their officer was on their phone/laptop, yes they were speeding, yes they went through a red light, yes they failed to have their 🚨 on, but… No, they’re never found guilty and the whole internal investigation is the furthest thing from transparent to the public.

This is a bit different, but I took a taxi once where the driver was ranting how slow other drivers around him were reacting to traffic saying they weren’t paying attention…while he was fiddling with his phone and texting someone.

Was back when I was 19 or 20, was hanging out with my buddies from home over the summer while on break

We were at a McDonald’s at 1:30 or 2 am. Kid around our age comes screeching into the McDonald’s parking lot, going over curbs and everything, sparks flying from two wheels. He had punctured both his front tires and was riding on rims. Turns out one of my friends knew him - he takes a look, looks at the guy, goes “yo man, you probably don’t wanna drive on those”

Kid goes “yeah well I really want McDonald’s I’m gonna go home after”

My friend goes “you live about 15 min away, you really shouldn’t drive.”

He gets his shit and starts driving, sparks still going off. Were a little concerned so we follow him. 200 feet later he gets pulled over, so we pull over behind the cop. The cop looks at us and goes “do you guys know this idiot?”

My buddy’s like yeah…

Cop says you should get him in your car.

Kid refuses. Drives 8 miles home in rims. Smoke everywhere, most awful sound you’ve ever heard. We follow him home, I find out he’s dumb rich.

We go into his guest house, which was bigger than all of our actual houses, smoke one, then leave.

Seen too much shit.

People driving and: texting, watching movies, reading with books or newspapers pinned to the steering wheels, working on a laptop with those steering wheel laptop holders, applying makeup, shaving. Sometimes more than one of these things at a time.

The cellphone video/text/surfing is a multiple times a day occurrence. People drive with their phones in their hands and use them all the damn time.

Seen two people deceased, one hit while attempting to cross a busy road well away from a crossing area, another thrown from the car after rolling it because they’d clipped a car while they were speeding and weaving through traffic.

People backing up in breakdown lanes on freeways to make an exit. People crossing multiple lanes rapidly, cutting off other cars, to avoid missing an exit. People OUI weaving in a lane. People nearly coming to a full stop in traffic to avoid missing an exit or turn.

Yeah, think that’s most of it. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some. I’m sure I’ll see more tomorrow.

I once saw a car driving the wrong way on a one way, make a turn to drive the wrong way on a second one way.

I’ve seen two people clearly on phones hit each other as they were accelerating at a stop light, and then keep going. Fortunately the really only screwed up their front quarter panels from what I could see.

I’ve seen someone use an entry ramp to pass on the right.

I’ve seen someone who missed their exit try to still make it by driving through the grass, it didn’t really work.

I’ve seen several impromptu street races, the best was a hellcat and some crotch rockets.

The craziest was probably a pickup truck with a huge load of straw bails that had caught on fire.

I was riding down the highway and spent time looking out the window as I often do since I’m bad at keeping up in conversations. Parallel to our vehicle is this very highbrow lawyer, who I recognized because I had been to the courts before. Maybe he didn’t think he would end up driving so parallel to any vehicle, but there he was, quite visibly texting while driving. Or maybe playing Candy Crush, I don’t know. I definitely don’t snitch under those circumstances, but my friend’s kid, who was in the passenger seat behind me, hears me mutter to myself about the willingness to “if only my hand was forced”, takes my camera which I always have with me and takes a picture, and within minutes, it’s all over the airwaves. The lawyer’s standing did not exist for much longer.

There was a guy I used to see in traffic who used to play trumpet as he drove. It’s been more than 20 years since I saw him and I still think about it from time to time.

Had a guy pass me on the right going 20+ over the limit while taking a bong hit.

About 3 months ago on my way home picking up burgers for my bro and i. On a major route and this sketch pedo van (early 90s white ford econoline rusted out and ratty as hell) busts out of a side street, almost hitting one person, slams on their brakes, slides over 2 lanes into oncoming traffic passes me and 2 other people before cutting someone off as an oncoming car almost hit them head on, the. Makes a left hand turn on a red light at the next intersection.

This could have been in a movie except somehow no accidents happened in my view. Fucking crazy.

Besides that a few years ago at 3 lane traffic circle on one side of an overpass to our largest highway(settle down, its only 3 lanes each way!)hear someone absolutely gunning it over the overpass. Comes into view, brand new metallic blue BMW M3 goes the wrong way into the traffic circle (everyone stopped because we all heard it coming) loses control, spins like 480° almost hits the retaining wall in the middle of the circle then proceeds to gun it back over the overpass they came from.

I blame drugs