I Hate Madison Drivers and The Foul Cars they Drive

1: You Stink. Really, really stink, like nasty partly burnt hydrocarbons and dirty diesel smoke, or rotten eggs. If you actually got out of your rolling cocoon and had to walk down the sidewalk, you'd maybe realize how hard it is to breathe the shit that comes out of your tailpipe. It's a fossil fuel sewer you're pumping out into my lungs. And you're killing everybody not in your car with it, with diseases caused by the microscopic soot, with asthma and heart disease.

2: You're mentally vacant. Not Paying Attention. You're wrapped up in a rolling living room, a plush pod of carpet, sound proofing with an isolating stereo system.

So you don't seem to realize that you're not the only thing in the world, and have no connection to where you're at and where you've been. Everything becomes about getting somewhere in a hurry, or ignoring everything between your ugly suburban house and your even uglier office downtown.

3: ME ME ME ME ME ME! You're a self absorbed bozo, and you seem to think you're the only one that matters. You get mad when somebody actually has the nerve to walk or bike on YOUR ROAD. So when you realize you're about to run over some poor fucker who's only crime is to not burn fossil fuel and have to slam on the brakes because they're crossing YOUR street when the walk sign is flashing, you become enraged, honk your horn or speed up to scare them out of the way of your Very Important Drive.

4: You Have No Sense of Timing. You stomp on the gas at every light so you can rush to the next one and wait for it to turn green, having no clue that you can drive almost all the way from one side of town to the other if go a steady two or three miles over the limit. So you wear out your brakes, piss away your gas and pump even more crap into the air. It's part of the next problem, number five:

5: You're an idiot. You are totally sans clue about the fact that you're driving something that weighs thousands of pounds, and takes a lot of time to stop when driven at the mentally lame speeds you drive at in town. And when you drive those huge pointless SUV's, your brain seems to vacate that lump of bone on top of your head, because being able to go faster on ice does not mean you can stop faster.

6: Your Ability To Multi Task Sucks Diseased Unconsenting Donkey Dicks!

Really, quit fucking with your stereo. Stop talking on your cell phone, don't be trying to choke down that giant 2000 calorie mocha while fiddling with your ipod while checking your hair in the mirror wondering if you wore enough aftershave while thinking about jumping the bones of that new girl in the office and making the beast with two backs. It endangers the rest of us, and that forty two seconds of pleasure you are fantasising about just endanger my life.

7: You're a Smug Prick With a Sense Of Entitlement. You bitch about bike riders being a pain in your ass because you have to share the road with them, you complain about the cost of gasoline, but you drive a gas hog you owe more money on than you could sell if for, and you seem to think you have a god given right to all that oil those dirty brown people have under their soil, without ever stopping to think about how much death and damage is done for you to have that fuel. You're also pretty resistant to the idea that you're an active part of changing the climate, making sure to drive your spawn everywhere in a big car so they're safe, not that it matters, you'll be dead before the big shit hits the fan and your children have to scrounge for food in the burned out grocery stores of their doomed, dry future.

I own a small truck, it's an ancient Toyota pickup. It gets 28 miles to the gallon, and I've arranged my life so I drive it once a week to the grocery store and a few times a month to the haul things like band equipment and lumber.

But the rest of the time, I bike or walk, or share rides if somebody's going my way.

And I am a Madison driver, and have done some of the moron-like things I've ranted about here, more than once.

But the last two years have really opened my eyes to the level of stupid and disconnected people in cars around here, and this winter has been the worst by far for vehicular mayhem and raging stupid.

I don't see much changing until we have six dollar a gallon gas. Maybe then, when everybody's out of a job we'll see change. But damn, it's too bad we're such morons about cars.