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Caption This: There Wasn’t One Word About A Burning Traffic Light In That Stupid Little Handbook…


Caption This: There Wasn’t One Word About A Burning Traffic Light In That Stupid Little Handbook…

The moment I turned 13 I started studying for the driving test that I would be taking in just a couple of short years. Maybe it’s just be, but I expected a hell of a lot more out of the exam than what I wound up experiencing. I aced the written test perfectly. At the end of my driving test the instructor actually said, “I’ve never given anyone a perfect score and you aren’t going to be the first. You didn’t check your mirrors often enough.” It took every ounce of rational, restrained thinking to not call bullshit, that I was studying my mirrors more than a NASCAR driver who just noticed Kyle Busch charging up from behind rather quickly. I learned it all. I was prepared for two different states’ worth of legal issues, everything from driving on public oceanfront beaches to what to do if your brakes fail on a mountainous pass. I had it all down pat, with the Washington and Colorado DMV books just about word-for-word memorized.

It’s been twenty years or so since then, and I can still tell you with no amount of uncertainty that not one damn paragraph mentioned what to do when the traffic light selects the nuclear option and bursts into flames. Red means stop, yellow means caution, green means go. So what the hell do I do now? Am I supposed to get out of the car, find the dwarf with the golden ring and drive them to the nearest volcano? Prepare for the end times? Tell you what…any malfunctioning traffic light is automatically to be treated as a four-way stop, so I’ll stop, make sure that Sauron isn’t trying to get my soul, then I’ll be on my merry way. At least it’s a bit better than that crosswalk I saw a few months ago…


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6 thoughts on “Caption This: There Wasn’t One Word About A Burning Traffic Light In That Stupid Little Handbook…

  1. john

    Surprised that 1/2 the town didn’t get out of their cars and start preying….guys, it was a ” burning bush” not a traffic light.

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