NARDS!!!

It’s an old expression that resurfaced in my vocabulary this past weekend. I don’t recall exactly what it meant back in the day, but this weekend it referred to a combination of “knobs” & “retards” on the road. Gawd there were so many of them I can’t even recall the specifics now…except for one…

This past weekend a friend & I went Stateside for a daylong shopping trip, with the majority of the trip being highway driving. On the return trip we encountered the subject of this post. A young lady in a blue Rav 4, pretty obviously a new driver based on her “10 & 2” hand positioning, was also headed home. I drive at the speed limit or a little bit above it, and so generally I’m passing people, or at minimum, moving with the flow of traffic. Being an experienced driver I know to watch the road ahead for slow pokes, on/off ramps & the popo. The young lady was not as savvy…nowhere near in fact.

I set the cruise and we headed on our merry way home. I’m well aware of the law about keeping right except to pass, but as I was doing just above the speed limit, myself and about ½ the others on the road were in the left lane, moving along quite nicely and likely using cruise control.

So I’m driving along in the fast lane, going with the flow of traffic, and Miss Rav 4 is behind me in the slow lane, advancing quite rapidly, only to be slowed by traffic merging from an onramp, and so over she comes into the fast lane, gets by the mergers and back over to the slow lane. And again, she advances quickly up to almost beside me, and again, is slowed by traffic in the slow lane. This time she clues in and stays in the fast lane and is moving along behind me, but then her speed drops off and she slides back over to the slow lane. Then her speed picks up and again she sling shots herself back up beside me, to the point where I think she’s actually going to pass me this time, but alas, again she is slowed by the merging traffic. She swings over to the fast lane, only to find herself going slower than the merging traffic, and so she slides back over to the slow lane. And so it went…continually…for upwards of 30 miles. She actually became a distraction to my driving and it became a game for my passenger and I to guess when Miss Rav 4 would make her next lane change. I swear she made no less than 50 lane changes in about 20 miles, always ending up directly behind me. And so, if you see a young lady in a blue Rav 4, license plate 898 HCX, considered yourself warned and enjoy the sport of watching her flounder about as we did.