Offender: White Plymouth Town & Country

Ah, the final exit until I get home. Nice, treacherous maze of entrances and exits and such. But people know the drill--wait here, go there, let that guy in. Everything flows nicely and non-dangerously. It was a little wet this eve, too. Just a little. So grandpa is cruising along between 15 and 25 miles per hour on the access road--I don't mean I couldn't quite tell, it's just that the speed varied. Over and over again. I saw him nearly cause two wrecks just with the speed variations. I passed him just as he came to a full stop, right before he crept over to get on entrance ramp.

Test them. Every year. Make sure they can see far enough ahead that they don't stop traffic making out the signs that, by their estimation, were lettered with puffs of cotton. Ridiculous. If he'd been drunk, he'd have had a hefty fine. But he gets a pass because he's incredibly old?

Gloves Off!

High school juniors feeling TAKS tension. "The TAKS video created at Jefferson, done with a "Matrix" theme, is trying to calm students by breaking down the kinds of questions that will appear on the English language arts exam today." Isn't part of the low-test-score problem that kids have gotten quite enough TV already?

In the same article, "You know how in high school some things come and go? TAKS is always there." You know, TEAMS (Minimum Skills) was "always there" when I was in school, but all that test really proved was that you had a pulse. TAAS ("Academic" Skills) took the place of TEAMS when I was in high school, and it was supposed to notch the challenge up a bit. I figure that was around for another 10 years or so. The challenge was staying awake. It had been deboned by the time it got to students.

I don't know about TAKS. These start off difficult but the Cult of Self Asteem and Graduation Rates, including the San Antonio Expressed-Views and pretty much all Texas media, start the drum pounding early. Standardized tests are always too hard because some kids don't do well on them. It doesn't really even matter how many kids.

Insert teacher slander here. It's really too early for me to get the bile flowing.

The AARP Doesn't Respond

I guess the Advanced Age Revenue Pumps are too chicken to respond to my anti-old-people screeds. Maybe I was mumbling! Nothing out of the ordinary on the Driving Ancients front. I mean, you folk would get tired of hearing about how random old folk tied up a lane or two of traffic on the way to work. I manage to avoid it lots of days. Leave the house around 7am, while the old folk are just winding down from walking around the mall.

Had a couple of fossils "racing" in front of me on the way back from lunch, though. But it's like my grandpa told me many years ago, "35 is the limit, it's not as fast as you have to go. I'm comfortable at this speed."

More on that piece of wisdom later. It involves enforcement of "go with the flow" and minimum speed limits. Yeah, there are a couple of spots around town with minimum speed limits. Not nearly so rigorously enforced as the maximum, though. Odd, that. Probably because old people spit and die and stuff when you pull them over.

The Motto of SCOOT

I forgot, the motto for Senior Citizens Out Of Traffic is "Get Granny Off Gravel!" I like it. Good alliteration, sharp, to the point, and it'll fit on a t-shirt.

How about a new crusade?

I'm declaring the Being Rupe blogsite as the official headquarters of Senior Citizens Out Of Traffic, or SCOOT. In the grand tradition of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, every anti-smoking campaign ever, and plenty of other public health crusades, I intend to shine a light on policies that endanger every driver on the road when they're not just slowing traffic down and leading to double-parked Roadmasters.

But Rupe, you're saying, how can we ever stand up to the blue-haired power of the AARP? Easy--we'll just work after 6pm, when the old folks are all asleep. And if they do catch us plotting against their drivers licenses, they'll just forget it in a couple of minutes anyhow. Assuming they can hear the planning in the first place. God knows they aren't going to be looking on the web. They're still bitching about how impersonal printed text is.

Since we're working off of the "crusade" approach, we'll need to do the following:

• Demonize old drivers. We're looking for the level of outrage families of five get from Malthusians. We'll want to hit the "hate" receptors early and often!
  
• Paint the AARP as extremists. Ooo, that word gives me a tingle!
  
• Imply that anyone that disagrees with us is either influenced by Big Retirement or just ignorant.
  
• Note that we're just trying to help old people from hurting themselves. Every Oldy Olsen hurt in a car accident is just more Medicare money out of your pocket!
  
• Play up every incident. No old person crossing two lanes in rush hour traffic at 34mph must go unmentioned!
  

Get on it. This is exciting. I'll be printing my own anecdotal evidence. Hopefully you, gentle reader, will supply your own anecdotes.