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Driving really irks me. I enjoy the subtle aspects of it, such as the feel of the road and feeling the wind rushing into that open window, but there's just too many horrid things about it for me to keep on enjoying it.


First off, I really hate red lights. Unless they are at a very busy intersection, then I find them to be a complete waste of time. I wonder how much of my life I've wasted waiting for that random red light to change to green. So many red lights are unnecessary. There's this one red light close to my house that is red nearly all the time I pass it up. The intersection it is at is basically frequented by about 5 or so cars a minute. Its the perfect example of a red light that should not be there. A stop sign would easily suffice as a replacement, but instead, I find myself waiting for the light to change every single time. Its not a quick transition from red to green either. It takes a few seconds for the light to change to green. You may think that a few seconds is almost nothing and that I'm just exaggerating my anguish, but everything all adds up. I think thats one of the things in society today that people always forget. Seconds spent adds up to minutes and eventually days. Just picture yourself spending a whole day at a stoplight. Stuck forever at the mercy of a single red light.

The price of gas is also one of the reasons why I don't like driving. I drive a 2000 Honda Civic, which is supposed to be a pretty good car when it comes to gas mileage. Yet whenever I go to the gas station, I pop in 20 dollars and it only fills my gas tank up halfway. We can probably thank our current president for this situation, due to his war. But another problem is that it seems like people aren't really making an effort to stop using gasoline. Our government has so much money rooted into the car and gasoline industry, that they're probably never going to make the logical decision to pour money into developing new possibilities for fuel.

Another thing that I dislike about driving is that, if you have a car, you find yourself being the person that has to drive around everyone that doesn't have a car. I usually don't have a problem with this because it doesn't really matter to me, but sometimes it gets out of hand. I don't like being depended on for giving people a ride, and I don't like having people just assume that I'm going to pick them up and drive them. I don't want to be known as just a chauffeur. It makes me think that the only reason I get invited to events is because I have a car and I can bring people to the event.

I can live with all these reasons though, if not for this last one. Other drivers on the road are perfect evidence for how retarded some people in this world are. Nearly all drivers have had an experience with a bad driver, and some of us thinking "Hell yeah man!" are probably guilty of being bad drivers in their own regard. I'm not saying that I'm a perfect driver because I do make mistakes, but I'm not one of those drivers that makes those kind of ass backwards mistakes that some people seem to make. A few days ago when I was on the road, I had a person cut me off twice in a row because he was trying to pass up the car in front of him. Excuse me, but last I checked, you're not the only person driving on the road; don't act like it. There's also those drivers that don't make mistakes but just do things that are generally annoying. For example, those drivers that drive the speed limit while in the fast lane. Sorry, but the fast lane has its unofficial speed limit set at about 20 mph above the official one. Its just simple little annoyances like these that happen whenever I go driving that makes me hate it.

I think the world would probably be a better place if everyone only used cars for necessary trips, like ones that are above 5 miles or require you to carry a load. All other trips can be done by walking or biking. Just think of the benefits of it; it would help our nations obesity problem and eventually people wouldn't complain because the walking would help shave off pounds and the extra effort wouldn't effect them cause they'd grow muscles and begin to become accustomed to walking. Sure, people would have to leave earlier in order to be on time, but that's not really a problem for most people. Making the workday start later on would also help ease the problem. Also, just think of the effects on the environment. As much as our government tries to deny it, the consumption of fossil fules is adding to the hole in the o-zone layer which is causing global warming. Any lowering of fossil fuels being consumed would help the environment. Our dependence on cars in this world is sickening, and I for one will begin cutting down on my car usage and start to ride my skateboard around more.