Doesn’t surprise me at all. It’s pretty amazing how much more aggressive drivers have gotten where I live. Back when most things were closed down and the roads were almost empty, they got in the habit of, literally, doing triple-digit speeds. And now that more cars are on the road again, they’re not willing to break the habit, so they swerve in and out of traffic, tailgate aggressively, cut people off, and run red lights routinely. Minnesotans were never exactly terrific drivers, but now it’s just gotten out of hand.
Before COVID I got passed by someone doing 100 maybe once in a year. Now it happens at least a couple of times a month, and that’s with me driving much less frequently than I used to, so I’m not even out there that often.
It’s a real indicator, honestly, that our society is at some level breaking down. If this many people can’t even have the common decency to mitigate their risk of killing other people (not that this is surprising given the simultaneous resistance to disease control practices), it’s a sign that we’re too deep in “me first” territory and we need to do something to reverse the trend.
+1 I’ve been saying for awhile that the pandemic has really brought out a large amount of selfishness in this country in a ton of people.
]+1 I’ve been saying for awhile that the pandemic has really brought out a large amount of selfishness in this country in a ton of people.
I think that depends on what part of the country you are in around here things are almost back to normal if anything changed it seems that folks are more friendly and helpful. When the pandemic first started all the law enforcement worked long hours doing things they did not normaly do such as finding out where the older retired people lived that did not live in town and going to there house to check on them they came to my house a couple of times to check on me and also give phone numbers to call if I needed anything,
Sure, some people have been more altruistic, but given the number of people complaining about their “rights” being violated by being “forced” to wear a mask or other very simple mitigation strategies? I stand by what I said. This pandemic has really exposed a nasty selfish streak in an extremely large number of people in this country.
I agree with this report. I see it every day in the Boston area. Rush hour before covid had traffic around 30mph…and some places between Boston and 128 traffic was down to 10mph. Now with far less traffic - speeds are way way up and many people driving far more aggressively.
Or a few times a day. I was out in rush hour this morning for the first time in a couple of months. A clown in a pickup streaked by me on the right (I was in the center lane, thank you very much), and then pulled in front of me to get around the guy in front of him. He had to be going 80 or 90. Then another clown an yet another pickup did the same thing immediately after the first one, except I was close to the back end of the car on mi right, maybe two car lengths away. The dope almost hit both of us, me and the car in the right lane. He followed his BFF at about the same speed. The only good thing about it is that they were gone in an instant. Let’s not forget the 100 mph’ers. After I exited onto another highway, numerous cars passed me like I was standing still, and had to be going at least 90. It’s just nuts. 
Yeah I would say it has made people angrier on both sides. The mother of our former pastor commented that if she is in the grocery store and sees someone without a mask on, she just gets so mad she wants to ram them with her cart. So much for the mild mannered. I just try to avoid people most of the time. Most people don’t make eye contact anymore or go the other direction when they see someone. Prolly something to do with hair on fire scared to death get out of my way.
Seems to me that Covid didn’t increase the actual number of “Flyers” so much as the reduction in traffic allowed the “6 foot tall and bulletproof” segment to practice their trade more during the now less congested daylight hours instead of their normal late light.
As far as masks go, when the surge hit, people started getting scared, masks were required statewide and compliance seemed to become total. Fear seems to be a powerful motivator and for those few who didn’t get the message, social isolation seemed to work. I guess it’s hard to be “Cool” when nobody lets you in the door and everyone recoils from you along with the occasional comment, “You must really hate your Grandma”.
On the plus side, with the numbers improving there’s a real possibility that Cars and Coffee will be back this year. Yaaay!!
In some places, yeah. In others, like bars in Wisconsin or pretty much the whole state of South Dakota, it was and still is almost a point of pride to refuse to wear a mask.
And a town not far from me just voted to refuse to enforce my state’s mask mandate, so the petulant teenager “whatever, I do what I want” crowd is definitely still out there.
Maybe where you are but certainly not in my area. I did not and still do not go to Lowes, Home Depot and WalMart unless I just have to . As for Car Shows plus we still want to buy a classic vehicle that will be on hold for some time .
Cars and Coffee events started up last fall but my state lifted restrictions in August.
We have a ton of traffic on the roads because tourist season came slamming back full force a few weeks ago. Spring Break is cranking along right now. Normal highway traffic runs 9 mph over the limit so the serious speeders are running 90 plus. But I don’t see any more than I’d normally see on any given day.
There are accidents reported every night on the news but they seem to be the typical pedestrian and bike hit and runs (a serious problem here!). The T-Bone accidents we get from red-light runners and failure to yield folks seem about normal. And then there’s the single-car, drove into the canal events likely caused by phone watching drivers. We’ve had maybe an uptick in single-vehicle rollover accidents with various suspected causes. Alcohol consumption is WAY up nationwide so those late night runs to the liquor store may be contributing to those accidents. Maybe the booze delivery app Drizly can help reduce those. 
But the number of older drivers crashing through storefronts is FAR lower than normal.
I wonder how much cell phone and texting has to do with it. I live out in the sticks with very sparse traffic but over the past 3 or 4 years I’ve had 3 separate instances where the driver of the other vehicle crossed over the center line on me and forced me to go to the shoulder. In all 3 cases it was women drivers who looked up at the last second and veered back right; cell phone in hand
As for masks I don’t and won’t wear them. If a business requires them then my business goes elsewhere.
A woman entering a store as I was exiting (hubby with her) stopped me and asked if “Aren’t you afraid you might give someone Covid”.
Irritated I asked her if SHE had been tested. No, she replies. Well l have; 4 times to be exact and I’m clean so if anyone is the problem then YOU are it. Hubby getting nervous and started giving her a let’s go honey nudge with the elbow.
The comment involving the pastor’s mother who said she wanted to ram someone for not wearing a mask could land her in trouble. If she did that to me (female or not) she’s going to get clocked. Once you start inflicting physicality on someone the gender ceases to be an issue.
I’ve been tested too, but I didn’t go into medical isolation immediately following the test, so all the test tells me is that I (probably, within a certain margin of error) did not have COVID at the time I was tested.
It’s like we coach people all the time here about Carfax. You look at Carfax for positive results. If Carfax finds a salvage title or a flood title, then it was useful because now you know the car has problems. If Carfax doesn’t find any problems, all that means is that Carfax isn’t aware of any problems. It does not mean the car is problem-free.
Same with the COVID test. A positive result is useful, because now you know you need to pay attention to any symptoms you might develop, and stay away from people even more than the usual social distancing, at least until you get re-tested to see if you had a false-positive.
A negative test is almost meaningless, because all it means is that the test did not detect COVID. It does not mean that you did not have a false-negative. It does not mean you were not exposed to COVID on your way to the car immediately after the test.
The only COVID test that matters is your last one, and it becomes less relevant with every day that passes between the test and now, especially if you go out in public where others might expose you to the virus.
Quite honestly, even if you are, naively, 100% positive that you do not have COVID, mask-wearing is if nothing else a signal to others that you take COVID seriously and are trying to minimize risk to them. It’s a politeness thing, because it’s rude to intentionally make others unnecessarily nervous or uncomfortable when not doing so is easy and harmless to you.
I really see this line of conversation to come to no good at all. Back to discussing Carfax, rude drivers, or even rude people if you can do it in a paragraph or so.
Not aware of any fatalities but during the lockdown we had a few wrong way drivers on I-5 through Olympia that could have been bad with the normal amount of traffic, one made it 6 exits going north in the southbound lanes before being stopped. A few did try to take advantage of the empty roads to do 100mph+ but I haven’t heard of many lately.
Yup!
A negative test for Covid-19 is merely a snapshot of that moment in time–along with the preceding couple of weeks prior to your test. Even if you test negative for Covid-19 today at… let’s say… noon, you could wind-up being infected by a maskless person in close proximity at 12:05.
Testing is a good thing, but assuming that it proves anything beyond that single snapshot of time is ultimately naive.
You could be infected by a masked person as well… a mask is no gaurantee.
Yes, but it is a better guarantee than the absence of a mask.
Depends on which medical research report you read as well as what mask the other person actually wears. Lots of far less effective masks that people wear. And then they touch the masks they’ve been wearing for a week or more and then touch everything around them.
Full disclosure: Not anti mask, I wear one when out near the public. Can’t hurt, might help so I wear one.