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Yesterday's traffic madness

We take a break from the Italian travelogue to report on three exciting traffic incidents that happened on the same patch of ground yesterday.

See, it was raining pretty bad yesterday evening, and as the old joke goes, Seattle drivers see rain so infrequently that they don't know how to deal with it.

The scene: I'm standing at the bus stop at the corner of 40th (east-west) and 148th (north-south). Traffic is nearly gridlocked. It's dark. It's rainy. It's 6:30pm. My bus, as it turns out, is 25 minutes late, but I don't care because I have a constant stream of entertainment: the drivers are on their worst possible behavior.

Genius 1: I see a new Prius in the northbound lane on 148th. The left end of the bumper is crumpled in. "That's sad," I think, "that's the first Prius I've seen with any kind of damage." Over the next couple of lights the Prius creeps up to the intersection, where (clearly having had enough) the driver makes a U-turn into the southbound lane. In front of oncoming traffic.

"Ah... that's why you're the first Prius I've seen with damage. You're the Prius driver with the least judgement."

Genius 2: Heading west on 40th, this driver turns south onto 148th out of turn -- after their lane's left-turn arrow has been red for a while -- in front of oncoming traffic. Sadly for them (but maximizing my entertainment value) the first car in the oncoming lane was... a police car. Who turned to follow them.

Genius 3: This driver takes the cake. A small car -- Acura, maybe -- creeps a little bit south of the three of us standing at the bus stop. The driver leans his head out of the window, makes an annoyed sound, and drives up onto the sidewalk. He drives about 150 feet down the sidewalk, and then takes a right turn into what I assume is his apartment complex.

To be fair, he probably saved about 15 minutes.

I tell ya. Who needs "Reality" TV when the real world is so much fun?