"Provo Drivers, go back to...Utah"

I know that everybody always says that "[insert your place] drivers are the worst!" I've heard it for California, Idaho, and especially Utah. In fact, I often find that I'm the one saying it. But after today there is a clear winner: "Provo drivers are the worst!" And I would even go so far as to include pedestrians in that sweeping generalization. Let me explain:

In an average day, I drive less than 10 miles and today was no different. In those short 10 miles, 3 cars managed to make a left turn in front of me through an intersection forcing me to slow down (and it was clear that each of them did in fact see me). One car pulled out of a driveway and stopped so that he was blocking my lane, forcing me to swerve around him. Two groups of pedestrians clearly disregarded a traffic light and forced me to wait for them while I had a green light. I mean, come on people! I understand that everyone has places to be and seems to be in a hurry. I'm okay with speeding and even slightly reckless driving, but this is just wrong.

Ok, now that I've got my soap box out of the way, I can finish my woeful tale. Christy and I went to pick up a movie from redbox and after leaving, we had to turn left through a bizarre Provo intersection (notice our piece of junk car in the diagram below). The guy in front of us, however, seemed clueless as to what to do (as if following the green arrow was really difficult). He hesitated when he went through the first light and then acted like he was going to stop on the yellow light in the median area. We both could have made it through, but I figured that if he wanted to stop on yellow, so be it. And then at the last second, the guy decided to run the red light and go through anyway, leaving me stranded to watch the cars go by until I finally got to complete my left turn a few minutes later. I was tempted to turn my brights on to blind the passing drivers just to get even with all of the terrible drivers this town seems to produce.


Well, I figured my torment was over when not a minute later a huge truck pulled up behind our tiny Corolla. And he just happened to have those annoyingly bright blue headlights that flooded our car and forced me to avoid looking at any of my mirrors in order to keep my eyesight intact. I guess I can't really blame the guy for his driving, but seriously...who needs a truck that big and why do the headlights need to be positioned in the perfect place to blind all drivers who are unfortunate enough to have cars with tires less than 5 feet in diameter? It's ridiculous!

As a disclaimer, I feel I ought to clarify 2 things: 1) My driving experience rarely involves this many morons in a single day, and 2) My road rage isn't usually this bad :) - but if you cut me off in Provo from this day forth, prepare to face my vengeance!