If You're Happy And You Know It, Press Your Brakes...

When you are driving at a considerable speed up to a light which, to your dismay, turns yellow just soon enough that it would be unwise not to stop, you apply your brakes and begrudgingly come to a halt. This is normal.

When you are driving at a considerable speed up to a light which, to your delight, is green... you apply your brakes anyway? This is not normal.

"Brakers" (which is my extremely polite term for these people) are all over the place. It's not just at green lights where, you may argue, these brake-happy drivers may at least be anticipating the possibility of needing to stop. Curvaceous roads are another place they like to strike, and throw even a 10 degree downhill incline into the mix and you are in for the equivalent of stop-and-go traffic.

Don't get me wrong, I'm an understanding person. In all of those situations the guilty party may be able to produce a viable excuse. "My car doesn't handle turns well," or, "If I don't brake I accelerate too fast." The one that really gets me, though, are the people who brake on a straight road with nothing but air in front of them.

What's going on there? Are they on their way to some hideously dreadful event that the foot they use to break is having a physical reaction against? Do they have some sort of twitch, in which case they shouldn't have their license at all? In the end I always conclude that they must realize that I, unlike them, have somewhere important to be and they have decided to do everything within their power to stop me from getting there. Ugh.

The other form of braking that is painfully intolerable is highway breaking. I'm entirely convinced that if people stopped breaking on the highway there would never be traffic anywhere, including accident traffic, since I'm fairly certain that a great deal of it occurs when one car crashes into another one in front of it that braked unexpectedly. Here is my suggestion: take your one foot off the gas and you won't have to put the other on the brake. Amazingly, the car does not accelerate of its own free will, so when you stop giving it the signal to go faster it will (somehow) slow down all by itself.

Storytime:

I had to deal with one of these people today. I was picking up my 11-year-old brother (who, thanks to me, may be the only pre-pubescent, non-license bearing person with road rage) from a sleepover and bringing him to soccer  practice when I made the mistake. In a rare moment of generosity, I decided to let a navy blue Volvo that had been waiting to turn left on the street out in front of me. I should have known it was a bad idea... only people who are afraid of driving buy Volvo's, the safest car on the face of the planet. Over the next few minutes, the car's brakelights blinked so frequently it was astounding that it was still moving at all. At every intersection I found myself anxiosuly waiting to see a turn signal, but to my dismay he may as well have been bringing another 11-year-old to the same exact soccer practice.

Suddenly, the melodious sound of Umbridge's theme music (a ringtone set aside especially for my mom) filled the car and I knew it was bad news.

There was no hello in store for me on the other end of the line, just: "Are you here yet? He's going to be late. I told you to leave sooner." Great.

I didn't need to leave sooner. I left at the perfect time. How was I supposed to anticipate that Mr. I-like-to-brake-like-it's-my-job was going to be in front of me for 25 solid minutes?

Finally, some higher authority took mercy on me... The volvo went left, I went right, and my heart rate returned to its normal resting state.

The End.

In conclusion, lets put a brake on the brakes, okay? We'll all get wherever we're going much faster, and after all, isn't that exactly what want here in New England?