Idiots that Drive

Michelle wanted to vent: "My pet peeve is when drivers fail to yield at a yield sign. Yield means to SLOW DOWN, YIELD to oncoming traffic."

Excellent point, Michelle. I wholeheartedly agree. People do lots of stupid things when they're driving. I've recently noticed an alarming trend - cars at stop signs don't pull out when the road is clear but instead wait until a car is coming & then pull out in front of it, unneccessarily cutting off some innocent driver. Has anybody else noticed this or am I crazy? (Perhaps both, but that's a whole different post.)

Each day I have to cross a very dangerous intersection multiple times. It sucks but the road I live on can only be accessed here, lest I drive about 7 miles out of my way to avoid it. It's really scary because traffic from one direction ignores a yield sign, traffic from another direction routinely ignores a stop sign & traffic from the 3rd direction is normally disrupted by people entering a road marked "exit only". I'm not a mousy driver, nor am I easily intimidated but at least once a week I get a serious scare at this intersection. It's been the site of numerous horrific accidents yet the police never patrol it.

What can we do about it? Probably nothing, unless you're a traffic cop & want to hang out there. I hesitate to make this accusation but I think that there are a lot of stupid people in the world & also a lot of lazy people in the world. They disregard the safety of others (as well as their own) & cause a lot of trouble. They also take their drivers license for granted.

I propose a controversial but rational solution: Every 4 years when you renew your license, you should have to take the written test again to refresh your knowledge of traffic laws. It shouldn't be hard to pass unless you're a moron. Even morons could just study for the test. You passed it once, right? So what's the big deal?

They could charge you an extra $20 to do it & that extra money could be used to fix the bridges that fall down all over the state. Okay, I work for a company that makes parts of bridges so I'm somewhat biased but as a driver, I'd like to know that some of my money goes to infrastructure. Use it to lessen the gas tax or something.

That averages out to $5 per year to drive & I'll bet that it would decrease accidents. Less accidents mean lower insurance premiums for drivers, less victimization of innocent motorists by idiots, less money spent on emergency personnel by government. Insurance companies require a drivers license to insure you so they could police it. They check your driving record, personal credit history & who knows what else every year so they will know if you let your license lapse. If you do, they will cancel your insurance & notify PennDOT, as well as whoever may be financing your vehicle.

They already do this when you cancel an insurance policy (say, if you change insurers) so it's not adding any extra work to the insurance company. There would have to be extra administrative steps involved simply because PennDOT would be required to revoke your registration if you let the license lapse but how hard is that? I think it's a great idea, what do you think?