Miami drivers are stupid

With the holiday cheer comes the chaotic, frantic, almost lethal fervor of people rushing about, fighting each other for presents. When you live within ten blocks of two malls, an easy drive home can become a fight for your life. The danger increases tenfold when you live in a city where no one knows how to drive. Trust me, I took the license exam here, and there is nothing in it that justifies that the person passing actually knows how to drive. Nothing at all.

So I’m driving home with my stepdad in the passenger seat and my little brother in the back. I’m getting closer to the malls and the traffic is horrendous. There are lines of cars coming in from the Everglades just to shop. At one point I come to a T-junction, where a bunch of cars are waiting to come in after leaving the mall. The cars at the other side of the junction have stopped so I figure there’s no point in crossing and I stop to let the cars on my right cross. Here’s where the moron-ery starts.

If I decide to let one car go, that does not mean that ten cars after it have my permission to follow. It seems simple enough, but it might help if I explain with a picture.

Unfortunately, as soon as I allowed the first car to go, the next car tailgated it all the way through. This girl driving the second car was practically sitting in the backseat of the first car, flooring her pedal enough to stay within rear-ending range of the car in front of her. After that it was open circus on the street, with every other car just going, until there was a mad frenzy of cars in every direction almost blocking my chance to finally go. The scene was more like the following picture.

I’m not sure if that picture does the scene justice, but believe me when I say it was climactic. All of the sudden there were cars everywhere and I was almost cut off from escaping completely and at one moment when I looked to my right I saw an elderly lady look back at me from her window with a face of pure terror. Fortunately my many years of training with games like Mario Kart and Stunt Race FX prepared me for harrowing moments like this and I was able to squeeze my car through the obstacles and reach the goal. Had I foregone some of that gameplaying time during my childhood with some healthy exercise or book reading, I would have definitely been underprepared.