Turkey Effects

 

 

Every year around Thanksgiving we hear various stories and old wives tales (maybe this is no longer the politically correct term...if someone knows what that would be please leave me a comment in the box below) about how turkey makes you sleepy.  Is there any truth to that?  Does it need to be a combination of wine and turkey?  What if you just drink beer and watch hockey?

I do not know.

Maybe turkey has an effect on your sleeping.  I really can't say for sure.  What I can say for sure is that it surely has an effect on a person's ability to operate a motor vehicle.  I don't base this on extensive, or even efficient , laboratory testing.  Mostly it is anecdotal.  Driving home on both Sunday and Monday of Canada's Thanksgiving long weekend, I was witness to a spectacle of pure driving folly.  So many turkey addled drivers were unable to make wise and useful decisions on the road.  So many made me want to pull my hair out--I didn't, because that just wouldn't have been fair.

Left turns that took up three lanes.

Ignoring advanced greens (and consequently obnoxiously loud horns--and not just mine).

Talking on cell phones while driving.

Improper lane changes.

Poor musical choice on the stereo.

I saw it all this weekend, and I can never unsee it.  That is what makes it really bad.

Perhaps we need a new campaign.  "Arrive alive.  Don't eat turkey and drive!"

And Lest I Forget

Shortly after posting this blog (the next day, but the first time I had actually gone outside) I witnessed many more examples of this behaviour,  I also witnessed the other directional phenomenon.  I watched numerous cars that seemed incapable of making a right turn.  Since, in Canada, we are allowed to make right hand turns on a red light (after stopping and making sure the way is clear) I would have thought people could maintain their lanes in this simple activity.

Alas, I was wrong

Making a Left Turn

Why can't the majority of people make a good left turn?

nearest lane, nearest lane!

Everyday, I see people turning left and not entering the nearest lane.  They go careening across two (sometimes three) lanes.  Granted it has been a long time since I took driver's education, but I am pretty sure that isn't what you're supposed to do. 

What could be behind this?  Is it a comfort issue?  Wide turns probably are more comfortable than tight turns.  Is they were driving a bus or a big rig, I probably wouldn't be raising a stink, but when you're driving a smart car....

Sometimes the place they want to get to is a right turn immediately after the intersection.  In that case, I really can't blame them, I have to save my abuse for city planners.  Any car wrecks. are on them.

look there's another one

I am not really sure why I find it so frustrating.  Maybe it's because I have almost been wiped out by cars missing their lanes.  After a turn you don't expect someone to try and pass you on the right, especially after you signalled.  (In this case checking your blind spot is really important).   Maybe it is because traffic would move so much faster if I could make my right turn onto the road instead of waiting while the person misses their lane so that I don't get cut off or sideswiped.

In the future I am sure that we will be able to call every car by typing in their license plate numbers.  We probably won't get to talk to the driver, but the car will probably be listening.