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Traffic Surprises,

Traffic at night

Miamians are famous for our driving.

And I’m a Miami driver: I moved to Miami when I was sixteen, had a few fender benders, a run-in with a drunk driver, and more than a several (traffic related) run-ins with the police.

So very few things surprise me.

Well, that’s what I thought until tonight’s Taco Bell run.

Traffic around campus was a disaster. A graduation had just finished at the Bank United Center, which is right in front of my dorm. Cops directed traffic and traffic moved smoothly until the Suburban in front of me stopped to pick up a graduate.

The bald cop directing traffic screamed, “CMON! You must be kidding me! MOVE IT!”

The Suburban took its sweet time and then rolled up to the cop. The driver then proceeded to throw a mini bitchfit at the cop before speeding off.

I was shocked.

Rule #1 of urban police interaction: you do not tell off a cop.

Never, ever, ever. I once got a speeding ticket while going 5 miles under the speed limit. Did I tell off the cop? No. Pissing a cop off never ends well for the one without the badge. Ever. Well, unless you have diplomatic immunity or something crazy.


Later on US-1: I approached a red light in the middle lane and had cars on either side of me. To my left was an old man in a Minicooper and to my right was Mr. Hotshit in a white beamer – windows down, cigarette in mouth, dramatic house music blaring.

I wondered why Mr. Hotshit was accelerating towards a yellow light that none of us could make.

Well, Mr. Hotshit ends up making a screeching right turn onto Le Jeune road, then cuts across Le Jeune (a 4-lane road), into the gas station, zooms past the gas pumps, and then turns to go back on US-1.

The guy in the Minicooper and I watched this with our mouths open.

“Well shit,” Minicooper man said, “he could’ve just ran the light if he was going to do all that.”

We both started to laugh when we realized that Mr. Hotshit overestimated the curve and was sort of stuck in the gas station exit.

Hotshit kept trying to back his way out of the curve but couldn’t figure it out.

I think Hotshit may have mis-shifted and killed his engine too… well, whatever Hotshit did, he couldn’t figure the curve out before the light turned and we drove past him – still laughing.


I got to Taco Bell and said, “Hells to the nah.”

There were 9 cars in the line at Taco Bell and more than a dozen cars at the McDonald’s across the street. The gas station on the corner listed regular gas at $4.05 and there was no way-in-hell I’m going to let my old-as-hell car burn $4.05-per-gallon gas in a 9-car line.

No mam.

I hit it to the Taco Bell on Coral Way.  The Coral Way Taco Bell is awkwardly placed between high-rises and therefore usually deserted at night.

And of course, there was no line…Although by the time I paid five cars had filed in behind me. They probably spurned the lines down the road as well.


The driving fun wasn’t over

On the way back to campus there was a white Range Rover in the lane next to me on Ponce. The rover had a salt-and-pepper driver with the prerequisite giggling blond.

Well, I don’t know what the blond was doing, but it better have been good – the Ranger Rover almost sideswiped me and the Taurus in front of me.

Despite our honks, the Rover only began to stick to his own lane when he saw the cops directing traffic in front of campus.

Pfft.

I don’t know what caused tonight’s traffic drama.
I blame the Taco Bell line.

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