We all know how to drive. We also know that everyone else on the road has no clue how to drive. I’m reminded of the adage, “Everyone who drives slower than you is a moron, and everyone who drives faster than you is a maniac.” It’s true, isn’t it? When you’re out on the highway, your style of driving varies completely different than everyone else’s, and you think every other driver is doing something wrong. In some cases they do, but in most cases it’s just their own way of driving. I can recall going to Meijer one day with a female friend at the helm of the car. As she was waiting for a parking spot, she used her turn indicator. As she put it, and I quote, “This is the only time I use this.” Now I could spend this entire article bashing women drivers, and it would be pretty fun, but since I am limited to 800 words, I will steer away from this tempting subject.

It’s not hard to drive. All you have to be is sixteen years of age, and graduate from driving school, which is about as easy as cheating in Go Fish. On the other side of the spectrum, senior citizens with three-digit social security numbers are still allowed to drive, provided that they sit on enough phone books to be able to see over the dashboard. My girlfriend’s grandmother, who is in her 90’s, still has a license, but doesn’t like driving too much because, and I quote again, “it gets harder and harder to lift the oxygen tank into the car.” I would feel the fiery wrath of Hell if I were to make this up.

So we have people of all ages behind the wheel of 2,000 pounds of metal traveling at speeds in excess of 70 miles per hour. Not only that, but several of these drivers try and prove that they can walk and chew gum. While they drive, they will also eat fast food, talk on cell phones, read a book, and chew gum. I’m sure there are a lot of horror stories out there to be told by passengers who deserve some form of discount mental therapy. So, in an effort to make this world as irrational as possible, the automotive industry has decided to produce bigger cars in the last ten years. Yes, that’s right. More and more sport-utility vehicles are on the road. That is all we need: cars that can fit fifteen Volkswagen Beetles inside them.

I don’t hate SUVs. The garage at home has a Navigator and a 4-Runner. I’m not trying to make a push for everyone to buy smaller cars, either. In fact, the sight of dozens of Geo Trackers on the expressway makes me laugh uproariously. I think it’s time to realize that maybe more and more public transportation needs to be in place. I hear you laughing for some reason when I mention the phrase “public transportation.”

I think I know why people don’t believe in mass transit. As you recall from an episode of The Simpsons, the city of Springfield had a monorail built by a con artist named Lyle Lanley. After Homer learned to become a conductor, the monorail turned out to be faulty. Now, if you’re like me, you put a lot of stock in The Simpsons. You’d logically have little faith in public transportation such as monorails, subways, and buses.

I remember talking to my ex-girlfriend a while back and she was really nervous about flying in an airplane, because she had never flown before. I calmed her down by asking her if she was allowed to fly an airplane, then if she was allowed to drive a car. Becoming a pilot isn’t easy. Flight school is nothing like Drivers Ed. In flight school, you actually have to learn things. Pilots are well trained, and that is why there are considerably less boo-boos in the air than on the pavement. The same level of safety would occur with a bus driver, or yes, even a monorail conductor.

If we all become better drivers, we’d all still hate fellow commuters on account of our own styles of driving. So I’ll make a deal with all of you women out there. Get us some convenient forms of public transportation, and I’ll stop knocking women drivers. To prove I’m not bluffing, I’ll even let you drive. Just let me put on this blindfold.