honk honk bitch »

florida is known for its bad drivers but you really don't realize the full extent of how much they suck until you drive down here for an extended period of time. i've driven in florida a lot before, but only for like a week at a time, and mostly in more touristy areas. anyways driving here in pinellas (which, by the way, is the second most densely populated county in america, after new york county aka manhattan), i've realized just how much drivers here suck.

first of all, there is no law requiring motorcyclists to wear helmets. that, plus the preponderence of old people having mid- to end-of-life crises results in a lot of old, bad motorcyclists without helmets. morons.

second of all, there is no emissions inspection required by law down here. this means that there are old, shitty cars being driven around belching out smoke as dark as, or darker than the smoke being farted out by the chicken buses in guatemala. and i have a picture of that somewhere and it's pretty nasty.

also, in my 7 weeks down here, i've driven behind two cars whose taillights were completely out. like, wtf? both right and left, and the high-center light (the liddy light!), were completely and utterly non-functional. in my 22 years in new york and boston, i don't think i've ever driven behind a car whose taillights, all three of them, were dark. those mofos were lucky i'm smart and didn't plow into their stupid asses (snicker...).

so, what is it with floridian drivers? is there something in the water that, in addition to making it green, makes people unable to care for their cars? does the same thing that makes us so irresistable to hurricanes make us shittastic drivers? am i, as a transplanted new yorker, going to lose the skills that i so carefully cultivated for the last 5 years?

i fear for myself.