Is Mario Andretti in the house? His children maybe? A second cousin, twice removed? Could have fooled me. Two years in New York and I’m adding another line to my resume under Other Skills: “Combat Driving Experience.” I could handle an Iraqi minefield at 110 mph, if I was so inclined. And I’d feel safer doing that than sharing the road with you morons, who seem to think you’re extras in a re-shoot of “The Fast and the Furious.” Take your lead foot off the pedal and pay attention.

Cruising the parking lot at a hair under Mach 1 does not make you cool. Neither does spot stalking, for that matter. Few things give me greater sadistic pleasure than watching some Long Island frat boy follow me in his Beemer, then sit there scowling as I get into my truck and spend the next ten minutes playing with the radio before finally backing out.

How about that weather? Third rainiest city in the States, but a single drop of precipitation and brake lights flare to life. Don’t get me wrong, a bit of caution when driving in rain and snow is a good thing. We’ll all live longer for it. But when you slow down, and you should, you don’t need to drop from 65 to 35 mph! It’s a rain shower, not Noah’s Flood!

Highways. We’ll start at the beginning, with merge lanes. Like the name should imply, they are for merging with traffic. Which means you keep moving and ease into traffic. You don’t goddamn stop in them and sit scratching your ass! Likewise, once you’re moving, say down Route 17 near the mall, there are these little things called speed limits – which everyone ignores. Five, 10 mph over, that’s cool. We all do it. But this isn’t the Autobahn, you don’t have a license to travel at Warp Six.

I drive like you now. I don’t have a choice; you’d run me off the roads otherwise. So when I go back to West Podunk, Vermont, and ride with my friends, they all roll their eyes and tell me to stop acting like a New Yorker. Usually because they stop for every idiot that steps out in front of them and I sit there screaming, “What are you doing? Go, go, go! Use the bumper, that’s what it’s for!”

Oh, thank you New York.

Brent Pennington is a junior English major