Two fascinating traffic incidents today…
The first one was before I even got out of the neighborhood. I needed to pick up some supplies on the way, so I parked in an urban lot across the street from an urban strip mall. (Believe me, there's nothing suburban about it.) Or tried to. There were two crossover-type SUV-thingies parked especially badly in two adjacent "compact vehicle only" spots (with a number of other, full-sized-but-an-additional-row-farther-away-from-the-store spaces empty), both plastered with virtue-signalling bumper stickers. Hint: A "compact SUV" is not a "compact vehicle." Making things worse, both were so badly parked — a good two and a half or three meters between the front of the vehicle and the front of the spot — that a "normal-sized" vehicle across the aisle needed a spotter to help get out of her spot. (At least the spotter knew what he was doing.)
So I went inside, picked up those supplies at two adjacent stores, and walked back out to the lot… only to see one of those SUVs back up and ding the vehicle across the aisle. I got a good look at Karen 1 driving it (that name is foreshadowing — your sign of quality multipart stories). With three bags of Whole Paycheck groceries on the front seat and an oversized Nordies bag in the back…
But things got better — or at least weirder. An little while later, I was toodling along in the left lane of the interstate, passing traffic at a few kph over the speed limit (in a lowered-speed zone with two partly-blind entrances), when a hoity-toity imported blue SUV wove through traffic and started tailgating. Since it wasn't safe to move back right, I continued passing for about another kilometer; just as there was enough space for me to safely move right, the SUV zipped over, passed me on the right doing at least 20kph over the speed limit, and zipped back in front of me. I was then regaled with single-finger salutes from the blonde female driver (she rolled her window down, at highway speed, just to make sure I'd get the point), then resumed her 20kph-over-the-limit speed.
For about another kilometer, when she zoomed from the left lane off at a right-hand exit. The only thing at that exit, especially with the road construction, is a casino. (Hey, "Karen 2": If you'd really like to press your luck, I've got your license-plate number.) And despite the whingeing about how bad traffic is around here, it's still less nerve-wracking than London, or Tokyo. Let alone Riyadh.