Vallejo 7:25 AM
One of the down sides of casual carpooling can be the uncertainty of who you share your ride with. (It can also be one of the more interesting and pleasant aspects of this experience.) Most of the time – almost all of the time – there’s no problem. As I’ve said before, there’s a kind of comaraderie in this situation and everyone tries to make it as good as they can. But once in awhile . . . . like today for example.
I crawl into the back seat of a 2-door BMW. The couple in the front seat appear to be together. Once we hit the freeway, I begin to feel uneasy. The driver revs it up to 80 mph, working the manual transmission, tailgates whenever he comes up on anyone daring to only do the speed limit of 65, and goes even faster to pass cars in front of us. From my seat I can easily read the speedometer. Finally I stop looking at it. I can’t hear the bits of conversation between the couple, but I gather, from the driver’s gestures at other cars and his general tone, that he’s commenting and critiquing other cars on the freeway, especially other BMWs we pass.
This car is who this guy is and in a scary sort of way. I don’t like him and I don’t like his car. Finally he’s forced to slow down once we hit the heavy traffic near Berkeley, and I relax a bit.
We arrive in San Francisco at 7:55. Phew. A bad ride.
Filed under: commute, casual car pool, Today's Commute | 2 Comments »
Getting There 