blacklisted:

I’m currently visiting California, and I write to you from there now.

Yesterday I was stuck in horrible, unexplained traffic in Beverly Hills, nowhere near the freeway. I was driving in the right lane and found that well ahead of me, there was a car completely stopped and seemingly parked in more than half of my lane. I signaled in advance to move left and change lanes.

You were in a dark grayish green minivan and when you saw me signaling you inexplicably sped up to try to block me from changing lanes.

I know your type. You’re stuck in traffic, yet you have to “win” and “get there” first even though you’re just going to wind up slamming on the brakes at the last moment, and you won’t actually get anywhere any faster because you’re STUCK IN TRAFFIC. In other words, a fucking idiot.

I’m a polite person, I stop to let old men cross the street. But I used to drive in Cairo and this is LA, where rude drivers are still relatively courteous. You can’t block me from changing lanes. I stuck my nose into your lane and forced my way in anyway. It’s not cutting you off if I signaled well ahead of time and you just decided to be a cunt. Signaling isn’t asking for permission. It’s being predictable enough to let you know my next move. You’re lucky someone in LA did that for you.

You got your panties in a twist and angrily honked at me when I started moving into your lane. I continued slowly moving in until I was fully in the lane and safely away from driving into the parked car. You furiously honked and tailgated me.

I think we can both agree that driving into a parked car that you saw a long time ago is a pretty stupid thing to do, right? The owner of the vehicle would have been pretty damn upset if I’d just smashed into it because someone I’ve never met has some unfathomable association with allowing people to change lanes ahead of her and superiority. Objectively speaking, it is worse to deliberately drive into a parked car than it is to change lanes. Perhaps if I had dangerously swerved into your lane without warning, you would have a reason to be upset, but we both know that’s not what happened.

That is why as the light changed to yellow, I deliberately braked and very slowly crossed the intersection. I didn’t speed up until I made sure I was out of the intersection and you ran the red light.

You moved left and changed lanes, intent on cutting me off as “revenge.” I followed the car ahead of me closely, inches from its bumper because I knew you didn’t actually have a practical need to be directly in front of me in that particular lane. You couldn’t cut me off, and as your lane moved faster than mine, you had to move along and then change lanes several cars ahead before finally turning right. I passed you and said goodbye with my middle finger, but I never even caught your name.

There was a camera at the intersection that surely captured you running the red light, so if you ever see this I would love it if you could just follow up in the comments section and tell me more about yourself, where you went to school, where you like to eat, how much your ticket cost and whether it came with any traffic school. I hear you can do traffic school online now, so hopefully you’ll be able to follow me on Twitter and have something fun to do while you learn about defensive driving or whatever.