Friendly Scofflaws

You know my favorite kind of scofflaws? The friendly ones. Those are nice. What's a scofflaw, you ask? It's one who scoffs at laws, of course! You see them everywhere. They cut people off in traffic. They go 90 on the highway. They ride their bikes through red lights. And they embrace it.

Can you guess what else they do? They barrel through crosswalks when they don't have the right of way, but they wave and smile at you. Because they're really just that friendly. So, thank you, soccer mom in the burgundy Ford Excursion with license plates WTE something. My helmet off to you for your display of kindness. It really brightened my day that you took the time to wave as you blasted right past this:

Do you know what that is?

First off, it's thermonuclear yellow and it's sticking out of the middle of the road. I know it had to have caught your eye. It also has one of those red-n-white octo-whatever shapes on it. I know you might not be able to read one-syllable English words, but a stop sign is a stop sign, and they're ubiquitous and universal here in the US. I know you have meals to cook, mouths to feed, and kids to pick up from practice. Please, for the love of all things good in the world, learn what to do when you encounter a sign like this in the future, especially if there's someone waiting patiently to enter the intersection. Smile and wave all you want. Just make sure you stop as well. The five seconds it sets you back will be rewarded by knowing that some nerd (like me) isn't going to berate you on the Internet.

The same goes for you evil school bus drivers.

You a-holes don't even wave. Bastions of safety with your day-glo orange vests, your powerful traffic-stopping swing-out signs and four-way blinkers. You'll stop at railroad crossings to guard the lives of those on board. You'll radio the cops if a car passes while your stop sign is out. At the same time, you refuse to give pause to pedestrians with the right-of-way in crosswalks unless you're in a school zone. I would laugh at this dichotomy if it hadn't resulted in countless close calls. Wonder why your dispatcher chewed your ass out over the radio? It's because I called you in, nimrod. You are driving a massive vehicle with your company's name all over it. Each one of your ginormous twinkie-shaped kidlet carriages is individually numbered. This isn't so kids know which moron to ride home with. It's so people like me can return the favor when people like you make my life hell.

Can you guess what else scofflaws do? They litter. They throw Sonic and Burger King cups, cigarette butts, and all kinds of jetsam and flotsam out the windows of their cars so that they can be whisked away into storm drains by rain or street sweepers. The rubbish doesn't end its journey there, though. It traverses a series of tubes (not the Internet) and winds up in a creek or a river somewhere, kind of like this.

What? Can't see it? Let me zoom in for you.


Okay. I need to turn this post around. My blood pressure could probably burst a tubular tire right now.

Really, my ride home wasn't that bad. I just felt like venting. Enjoy some more photos.









The wheel is going to attack these people:




I haven't seen this truck before, but this guy's campaign was something like 3 years ago. I guess Scofflaws also like to deface things. But this was chuckle-worthy.


Obligatory close-up