Elderly Drivers

Last week I had the pleasure of having a week off of work.  I didn’t go anywhere or do anything extravagant.  Just relaxed and took care of some of the things that never get done during the week.  Driving around mid-day while everyone else was at work I experienced something that is usually a bit more rare during the times I’m normally on the road.  Elderly drivers…

Honestly, why are they still on the road? I understand they need to get from place to place like the rest of us but when their daily errands becomes a hazard to everyone else, it’s a problem.

During the week I am barely on the road.  I get to work in the morning and usually go straight home after work.  Sometimes there is the occasional grocery store stop, but all in all during the week all my driving is within a 10 min radius from my house and it’s hours where the type of driver mentioned above is not on the road.  This past week mid-day, unfortunately for me, they were.

Now I’m not trying to be stereotypical, and I’m not speaking of the younger group of senior citizens who with the marvel of modern medicine are running around like they are 40 as opposed to 60.  I’m speaking of the ELDERLY.  The individuals who can barely walk, barely see and barely hear.  Yet somehow manage to keep their license and their cars and drive quite often.  These individuals are scary and dangerous.

In this one week alone I was almost sideswiped by 3 elderly individuals all on separate occasions.  How did it happen? The same way every time.  Changing lanes.  They just don’t look!  Either that or they flat out can’t see.  It’s really not surprising.  They are driving around at 75+ years old can barely move how are they supposed to whip their head around and check their blind spot?  And their eyesight is so bad I doubt they have any peripheral vision left and peering over to their side view mirror is probably out of the question.

All three of these incidents would have been accidents had I not been able to slam on the break or swerve out of the way.  1 out of the 3 I was able to use the horn and have them swerve back into their lane to avoid an accident.  However, the horn is usually worthless because most of the time they don’t hear it or don’t think the honking is at them since they are so oblivious they never think they did something honk worthy.  Honestly WTF?!?

Anyway, wrapping up this little rant, I am unsure as to what needs to be done but this has got to change.  Maybe a mandatory driver re-test at a certain age? Although that would be seen as ageism.  I honestly wouldn’t even be opposed to having everyone every 10 years get retested.  If it kept our roads safer why not?  There are plenty of bad drivers out there, not just the elderly.

What do you think should be done?

Public Bathrooms

Hand Dryers

• If you are going to bother to install hand dryers in your public bathroom make them at least work.  There is no point in installing a hand dryer that doesn’t dry your hands and should not even be named as such.  Alternative names for such objects can be air blower, loud noise maker, time waster etc.  All that these “hand dryers” are good for are wasting my time and getting me annoyed that my hands after using a “hand dryer” are not in any way shape or form actually dry.
• Do not use paper towels and then proceed to use the hand dryer. That is idiotic and backwards.  The whole point of a hand dryer is to save trees and eliminate waste by not using paper towels.  If you use the hand dryer and it is one of the worthless kind as mentioned above, it is forgivable to then use paper towels to finish the job that the hand dryer should have done. However, it is never excusable to use paper towels first and then the hand dryer.

Men’s Bathroom

• Pee in the bowl not on the seat – PICK UP THE FREAKING SEAT! It’s not hard to do. Just pick up the seat and then pee. And honestly if the seat is down, it isn’t that hard to aim. Unless you are sitting there with a microscopic penis, and you forgot your microscope, you can get your piss in the bowl. Nothing is worse than having to take a shit running to the bathroom barely making it and once you reach the stall you lock the door turn around and are greeted by a lovely smattering of pee on the seat only made possible by someone intentionally trying to cover the entire seat with their piss. Then you have to start the process of gently (without getting any on your hands) wiping off the seat so that the seat is clean enough for you to get in and out as fast as possible.
• Toilet seat covers – if you are going to bother putting toilet seat covers in the stall make sure they fit the bowl.  Sometimes it’s like trying to fit a round peg in a square whole.  It doesn’t work. If the seat cover is too small to cover the bowl it is kind of worthless.
• Wet floor – 1. Why is the ground so wet? Is it piss? Is it toilet bowl water? Is it a leak? All of the above? 2. Why can’t someone clean it up?  If you are employed at the establishment and notice that the bathroom floor is soaking wet, either clean it up or get someone to clean it up. I do not want to slosh around the bathroom like I am in the Bayou.  Nor do I want to shit in fear of my pants touching the weird mixture of liquid that coats the bathroom floor.
• Install dividers between the urinals.  It is not a difficult request.  I have been to ridiculously nice bathrooms that obviously cost a lot of money to construct but yet they could not spring for the cheap plastic dividers so that someone is not too close for comfort next to me while I am peeing.
• I understand that some places are tight on space and why not save some room by making the bathroom small however, it is not ok for my back to be touching another man’s while he is peeing in the urinal behind me.  That is WAAAY too close for comfort.  This is equally true for adjacent urinals, if my elbow grazes the gentleman next to me we are too close.  Either space them out or preferably as mentioned above, install dividers.

…more to come.