Corn, lots and lots of corn. Is Illinois the corn state? Which college football team is the Cornhuskers? Isn’t that Nebraska? Hmmmm…. All of this is going through my mind in a matter of moments as I follow the Optima Batteries One Lap Camaro through the Illinois countryside. Owner James Shipka is dropping it off after a long weekend of racing at the Heidts Performance Car Challenge because it’s going on the road with the Optima Batteries display for the next several weeks. So while James is enjoying the 600 hp ’67 Camaro, albeit with no air conditioning, I’m tooling along in a Versa. The only redeeming quality to the Versa is it’s air conditioning system at this moment. Its CVT, the same kind of transmission a snowmobile has, is supposed to be the coolest thing. Annoying is all it is for me since I have to keep my foot in the damn thing just to overcome the drag from the air conditioning compressor. The experience is something like driving a 100 horsepower Camaro with a converter that stalls at 6000 rpm. No, 100 horsepower is not a typo. The poor Versa also has the distinct disadvantage of NOT being a Camaro. After experiencing near triple digit temps all weekend with humidity in the 90 percent range, air conditioning is really all I care about, so I can get over driving the shitbox.

Speaking of high heat and humidity, who is the f&%#$*@ genius who came up with the heat index? Keep that crap to yourself weather nerd. Watching the news or listening to the radio and hearing it is going to be 100 outside and that it will be humid is all we need. Nobody needs to hear that it will feel like 115. Come on.

Anyway, there is a shit ton of corn on this road. It’s everywhere. And now I’m stopped at an intersection somewhere near the bustling burg of “Who the hell knows” waiting for a dude, in what appears to have been a Pontiac Grand Am before the cancer ate it, to cross the intersection. His rate of acceleration is akin to my kids departure from the couch when the trash needs emptied.

Meanwhile Shipka is 4 miles down the road and I’m still sitting at the stop sign.

Instantly I am reminded of every annoying thing people do on the road, and all I want to do is T-Bone this bastard. It’s Sunday though and that wouldn’t be very country of me now would it. Instead I become the topic of his dinner conversation as I turn right to then make a u-turn around the back of his car and then turn right to continue in the original direction. Technically I believe that means that two rights and two lefts make a straight.

You’ll also want to note that I was talking on the phone making hotel reservations while performing this maneuver. Wow, multi-tasking!

I’ve driven all over the country, as discuss in past Chadmouth editorials, and tend to have opinions on road conditions and driving styles in some parts of the country. My home state of California is unique since we have traffic every day of the week. We even have traffic reports on the weekend. Really! But the good thing in Southern California is that for the most part people speed, but not by some crazy amount, And in general all that the Highway patrol cares about is that everyone within view is traveling in the same direction at at roughly the same speed regardless of what that speed might be. 65 mph usually means 75 in So Cal.

When I used to live in Dallas I thought people there drove super fast and fairly crazy. They do. A good 5 mph faster than you would think about driving is the norm. So a 65 mph speed limit becomes 80 plus on the freeway. In addition, Texas drivers feel the need to use flashing lights whenever possible. And sometimes for no apparent reason. Emergency Flashers, or Hazzard Lights, are treated like an accessory. Driving down the freeway at the posted speed limit or faster while proudly using your flashers is some kind of Texas thing. FYI, it makes me want to crash you into the ditch. I’m just saying. Oh and turn signals are used a lot there. Of course the side that they are flashing on should in no way be confused with the direction they are going to turn. “Hey, look at the pretty light.” Wow…

Speaking of pretty, someone please shake something shiny so I get back on track. Oh, there you go.

So Grand Am Guy is now a faint memory, but I’m now thinking about merging. Seriously the most difficult maneuver you can make in a motor vehicle, if our freeways are any indication, is merging. “Chad, how the hell did you just get on the topic of merging?” Shut up, I know my brain goes in circles sometimes, but the dumb guy in the Grand Prix made me think about crap drivers and then the giant red neon sign saying “MERGE YOU MORON!!!” was shining right at the front of my head.

So why is it that an action that should require the brain power of a newborn is somehow impossible for most people on the road? I’m on a plane writing this, so the definition of the word merge isn’t going to be included in this Chadmouth, but you all know what it means. Get on the freeway without impeding traffic and disrupting traffic flow. How hard is that? It’s the skinny pedal on the right! Speed up or slow down so that you can get right into the line of traffic in the slow lane! I’m no civil engineer, or traffic flow expert, but any logical person would assume that if we could all merge effectively we could get rid of half of our traffic problems. Either that, or there is one idiot at the front of the line making traffic on purpose.

And our inability to merge doesn’t just revolve around driving. In the line to get on my Southwest flight, I couldn’t believe the number of people that are so paranoid about getting the right seat that they cut in line and don’t go in order. The dude in front of me actually got mad when the lady with number 18 (I had 19) asked him to get behind us because he was number 20. Sometimes people suck.

What do you think?

Do you know how to merge?

What driving habits drive you nuts?

What bad driving habits do you have?