Hours of Daylight – 11:05
I know, i know, i truly sound like a broken record, but this is it, i’ve had it. I’m referring, of course, to Minnesota drivers.

This morning Annette and i drove the short distance down to lake Calhoun, one of the city lakes. We walked the 3.4 miles around the lake, got back in the car, and began to drive the short distance back home.

Immediately after starting on 36th street toward home a green buick roadmaster dropped in behind me at a distance of about 1 car length. The non discript woman driving the roadmaster quickly closed the distance to about 1/3 car length as we made our way along the three lane residential street. After the second light the road closes to two lanes and she closed even more on my bumper.

After crossing Lyndale, a major north/south street, she closed in even more and i did what i always do, slowed my speed a couple of MPH down to the local limit of 30. She came in even closer. There was nobody behind her and nobody in front of me. I flashed my brake lights. She panicked and jammed her brakes (i saw the roadmaster’s nose dive toward the pavement). Normally this minor drama would end here.

Look, we all do it; sometimes we follow too closely. My rule of thumb is two car lengths or 2 seconds minimum, but different people have different comfort zones. Speeding up would not have solved the problem because going faster would only have meant she’d be tailgaiting at a higher speed, and i was going to have to slow to a near stop and turn left in a few blocks. This big chick in her big car was too close, and i alerted her to that fact. Other drivers have done that to me when they feel i’m too close. However ms. roadmaster accelerated back to a few feet off my bumper and started waving her hands in a “what? what is your problem?” manner. I held up my hands showing separation. She gave me the finger. At the next red light, Grand, she cut right and pulled in beside me, gave me a nasty look, and then swung a right on red, where it’s not permitted, south onto grand and tore off down the narrow street. I watched as she cranked the roadmaster hard left at the next block. I was glad there were no kids out yet this morning.

What’s my point? Even on a quiet Sunday morning, here in this land of uncivilized, self-important, overpaid, overfed, white collar nobodies, a simple drive to a local lake can become a point of high drama that could easily have started a chain of events that might have led to an accident. The event puts a tinge on my day, maybe on her day, and adds a tiny unit of bad energy to the universe.