BailOut
08-22-2007, 04:55 PM
While being led in a single file line of 11 cars by a contractor's pickup truck through a section of Mount Rose that was being re-paved I was 5 cars back. This kind of hand-holding is necessary as they only let traffic through in one direction at a time while paving.
The first vehicle behind the contractor was a dump truck that was spewing a little bit of black smoke from his exhaust pipe. Directly behind him was a middle-aged man in an over-sized V6 AWD Toyota Sienna.
I noticed early on that the driver of the Sienna, the lone occupant, was smoking heavily. I mean a big, deep drag every 6 seconds or so, followed by a tremendous cloud of smoke and an ash flick out of his window. What's more is that he'd been doing that for several minutes, meaning he was chain smoking.
He was also the worst driver in our group. He kept falling back, and then he'd peg the throttle so hard the back of his van would wobble while he caught back up, creating a "slinky effect" in his wake.
After we'd been driving for a while he suddenly jerked to the right, across the freshly-paved and oiled lane we were supposed to be avoiding, onto a section of soft shoulder just large enough to fit his vehicle. In between drags and with his unfiltered cigarette in hand he made a grandiose display of waving off the fumes from the dump truck that had been ahead of him.
Once the last vehicle passed but before the trailing contractor did he once again floored his accelerator and fishtailed (leaving a nice imprint of dusty tires in the oiled asphalt) across the closed lane to jump back into the line, tires chattering and suspension rocking, white smoke pouring out of his window.
The first vehicle behind the contractor was a dump truck that was spewing a little bit of black smoke from his exhaust pipe. Directly behind him was a middle-aged man in an over-sized V6 AWD Toyota Sienna.
I noticed early on that the driver of the Sienna, the lone occupant, was smoking heavily. I mean a big, deep drag every 6 seconds or so, followed by a tremendous cloud of smoke and an ash flick out of his window. What's more is that he'd been doing that for several minutes, meaning he was chain smoking.
He was also the worst driver in our group. He kept falling back, and then he'd peg the throttle so hard the back of his van would wobble while he caught back up, creating a "slinky effect" in his wake.
After we'd been driving for a while he suddenly jerked to the right, across the freshly-paved and oiled lane we were supposed to be avoiding, onto a section of soft shoulder just large enough to fit his vehicle. In between drags and with his unfiltered cigarette in hand he made a grandiose display of waving off the fumes from the dump truck that had been ahead of him.
Once the last vehicle passed but before the trailing contractor did he once again floored his accelerator and fishtailed (leaving a nice imprint of dusty tires in the oiled asphalt) across the closed lane to jump back into the line, tires chattering and suspension rocking, white smoke pouring out of his window.