Douchebag Driver Score

Don’t you just hate it when someone does something rude or aggressive to you on the highway? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could signal to other drivers, “Hey, that guy in the blue sedan is a real jerk!” With the right technology, I think that would be possible.

I frequently muse about ways that technology could improve our lives. Obviously, one of the areas which could use some improvement is vehicle transportation. In many ways, technology has already made our daily commute much safer than ever in just the past few years. With features like automatic braking, lane departure alerts, and other such machine-assisted functions, drivers are probably more protected and assisted than ever before.

It is nearly guaranteed that we will one day have fully self-driving vehicles. A coworker of mine recently took at 100+ mile trip, taking control of his Tesla exactly twice. To me, that’s magical. Still, we aren’t yet to the point where all vehicles can fully maneuver themselves, and I think that state of full autopilot is still quite a while out. For the next few years at least, I believe that people will still have to maintain some amount of control over their vehicle.

Which brings me back to my original idea of douchebag drivers. You know the behaviors I’m talking about. They wait until the last minute to merge onto a busy exit, cutting in line in front of half a mile of people patiently waiting, and assert themselves into a gap barely larger than their vehicle is. Sure, I understand that zipper merging is theoretically more efficient. However, I genuinely believe it to be safer for drivers wishing to leave the interstate at a popular exit to commit to the outside lane early and wait patiently.

Beyond last minute exits, these members of humanity’s cesspool are just as impolite off the freeway. They weave in and out of lanes to get just a few cars ahead, and still get stopped barely in front of you at the next red light. On roads that do not allow passing, they ride your bumper, and the worst offenders even flash their lights at you. The nerve!

They take up multiple parking spaces, just to give their vehicle a buffer against other cars. At all way stop intersections, they go when they want, even if other vehicles were at the intersection first. It would seem that their ego is only eclipsed by their blatant disregard for traffic laws, and the safety that these rules of the road enforce.

However, douchebag drivers aren’t limited only to those who take advantage of the most minute and inconsiderate opportunity. On the other extreme, these drivers are the people who occupy the left lane while maintaining a constant speed of 10 mph less than the posted limit. They force people to pass on the right for miles at a time, with no pending left turn opportunity in sight. This disrupts the natural order of multiple lane highways, with faster traffic advancing on the left, and slower traffic keeping to the right.

Perhaps my biggest pet peeve with these slower drivers is the refusal to make a right turn on a red light. I can understand a hesitation to turn on a red light if the intersection is busy and windows to merge are few and short. But intersections with little traffic, and especially those with a dedicated left turn signal, give ample time to turn right with no trouble merging. Right on red, except where stated otherwise, is a completely legal maneuver. Sitting at these lights isn’t illegal, but it is impolite when numerous cars could get through the intersection without waiting for the green light.

Now, let’s wrap all of this information up in a solution. I want a numerical score that gives a general idea of how frequently and severe these drivers violate the social norms of transportation. This number should be displayed above your vehicle within the augmented reality screen in the windshield for all other motorists. If you commit an infraction, the number goes up. If you do something generous, such as allowing people to merge in front of you, the number goes down. Over time, the number would gradually roll toward zero to accommodate for changes in behavior.

If you consistently cut people off and wait until the last second to merge, you’ll rack up a pretty high douchebag driver score. Alternatively, if you drive mannerably, you can maintain a low score and indicate to other motorists that you aren’t scum.

I realize that there are nuances with this idea that would make it practically impossible. What about people that share a vehicle? One person could give the other a bad reputation simply because the score would be based on car rather than driver. Using driver’s license as the score keeper would be a more accurate metric, but how do you associate the score with the license? My idea of a douchebag driver score is unfortunately in the uncertain area between fiction and technical impossibility. Like Smell-O-Vision, it also wouldn’t be valuable enough to justify the time and resources needed to make it a reality.

As satisfying as it would be to flag bad drivers as such, I don’t see it happening any time in the near future, if ever. Until that time comes, I’ll have to be content with blowing my horn and giving a rude gesture at drivers that refuse to pleasantly share the road with other vehicles. Just know that if you try to cut in last minute at the Woodruff Road exit from I-85, I will do my absolute best to prevent you from getting in. Wait your turn, you jerk.

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