I have discovered- almost accidentally- several markers that are good indicators of the type of driver you will encounter on the road.

See, I have driven well over a million miles in my lifetime and I will probably double that before I’m through.

James May in season 18 of Top Gear talks about how much more fun it is to drive a small car because it is far easier to reach the limits of it’s performance- and in a lot of respects, he’s correct. An old Beetle is a blast because you can throw it into a corner, and because you can’t do so at a breakneck speed, you do so with the near certainty that you will survive it. Skinny tires and a high body and a bolt-upright seating position mean there is only so much you can do.
This is why the Fiat 500 is becoming very popular, why the Smart car is so well received, why people like Elements. they are basically fun to drive, because you run out of performance before you can harm yourself too much.

In my time driving I have driven some sporty cars (Probe GT, SHO Taurus, borrowed BMW’s) and a lot of big dogs (Minivans, full size vans, small trucks and SUV’s). The big dogs are a LOT more fun, to me, because a: You can do other things with them than corner, and b: they are a good deal of fun to push to their limits and watch other people FREAK the FUCK OUT when they see that thing doing something they thought could only be done on a Nascar track.

So todays marker is the Do rag. The Do-rag is great on a bike, or in a convertible, if you have long hair, keeps it from flying in your face and beating you senseless- but if you see a MAN or WOMAN wearing a Do-Rag INSIDE their CAR with the WINDOWS ROLLED UP, you are hosed. This person will weave all over the road, making it impossible to figure out how to avoid or overtake them, and if mr/ms Do-rag is talking on the phone, well, give it up.

I encountered a do-rag on my way in in the morning, and she weaved and varied her speed so much that it was like a game of automotive whack-a-mole. Finally I pulled up alongside her and lay on the horn as she nearly drifted into me, and she slammed on the brakes, allowing me to pop into her lane and move forward. In my rearview I saw a herd of cars bloody nearly run into her as she came almost to a complete stop.

Do-Rag. Avoid at all costs.

Also: There seems to be a new thing going around where semis come up on drivers using cellphones and honk. I’ve never had it happen before but I know people who get honked at all the time. Yesterday I was heading home from a gig, cruise on, just tooling along in the middle lane listening to tunes on PVSTAR+, and a semi came up almost alongside, lay on his horn and then wheeled over behind me, I swear nearly taking off my back bumper in the process. Nobody else near us. Then he rolled down his window and flipped me off. I was solidly in my lane, doing 80 with traffic, so the cellphone is the only thing I could think of that he was bitching about. Sorry, buddy, I don’t fluster that easily. Go fuck yourself.

Finally, today I saw something I haven’t seen in a long time- a car with a red shop rag being used as a gas cap- or as I like to call them, a Molotov Carcktail. This was a 70’s vintage Ford Maverick, the rag soaked afresh with gas each time he accelerated, and only a match lie between he and an explosion. Does a body good to see someone sticking to the old ways.