The brother chronicles

[Rena_Muffin]

I actually didn't know driving rants could go here, so now I'm very happy! While I haven't had much experience with SCs, I have a lot of war stories about various drivers. Over half of these war stories concern my younger brother, and I thought I'd share some of his crazy (*cough* suicidal *cough*) antics with you all.

Now, don't get me wrong from the tone of this post, I love my younger brother. However, our relationship is slightly strained since he seems to choose to be an asshole to me and I'm not going to take that from my own flesh. Our fights our legendary because both of us are stubborn and don't know when to back down.

Needless to say, my brother is a maniac on the road. The fact he has not killed anyone surprises the hell out of me. His main problem is he has a problem with stopping. It's not an issue with the brakes, we share the same car, he just doesn't want to use them. I can't count the times he's blazed through the crosswalk at our college (it lights up when someone's crossing so you know to stop) and has nearly hit the pedestrian going across. At intersections, he routinely stops as far over the white line as you can get without being in the middle of the intersection. When he does use the brake, it's not the gradual pressing on the brake and coming to a stop you're supposed to do. He slams on the brake like there's a child in the road. I've actually gotten motion sickness from when we were driving around a town and he kept doing that at EVERY stop after speeding around the place.

The best story concerning my brother, however, is when I was helping him drive around with his permit. This was a decision enforced by mom, so I wasn't allowed to argue that I wished to live to the ripe old age of fifty and not die in the fiery crash I assumed would follow his getting behind the wheel. However, he was doing pretty nice, and all seemed fine.

Then *insert the jaws theme here* we approached the traffic light.

Now, at this particular stoplight, it looks like you can turn left. However, the fact there is a large sign that says in perfect english NO LEFT TURN and turning left would deliver you into driving the wrong way up the freeway make it so following that course is a truly stupid idea.

As we approach the traffic light, it turns red. We're in the left lane, I'm giving directions for my brother to drive us home, and this follows.

R: me
T: The boy whose going to cause me to have a heart attack one day.

R: We're approaching a red light, you may want to try putting on the brakes.

T: So do we turn left here?

R: No. No left turn.

T: But we need to turn left to go home soon. Are you sure we don't have to turn left here?

R: NO! Do not turn left. Put on the breaks please (we're getting reeeeeeal close to running this red light)

T: But we have to turn left!

R: Yeah, but not here. Look at the sign, it says NO LEFT TURN. NO LEFT TURN!!

T: Oh.

R: (really kinda freaking out now) PLEASE PUT ON THE BREAKS (We are really zooming towards this traffic light and there is a large truck turning. )

T: Stop yelling at me. You suck at driving, you don't get to tell me what to do just cause you have your license!

At this point, he goes through the red light. Luckily, we missed the truck hitting us. He looks all shocked and then yells at me.

T: RENA! Why was that guy turning! We should have the right of way.

R: IT WAS OUR RED LIGHT! HE PROBABLY HAD THE TURN SIGNAL! (the rest of this was probably cursing and thanking some divine deity for the truck not killing us)

T: No it wasn't.

We argue all the way home over whether the light was red and for weeks I am praying that the traffic light had one of those cameras so I could show my brother he was wrong. Unfortunately, apparently it did not and I ended up just feeling rather bitter about the entire event.

My brother is not colorblind or anything, he just does not pay attention like he should. I'll demonstrate more examples of this if people want to listen. If not, just be very wary driving around Washington state while my brother's behind the wheel.

[Flying Grype]

Is "America's Worst Driver" still on? You should nominate him.

[KiaKat]

Does he actually have his license? How in the nine hells of Zandru did he manage to pass his exam?!

[Rena_Muffin]

Does he actually have his license? How in the nine hells of Zandru did he manage to pass his exam?!

I'm guessing there was a pact with a demon of unknown origin. That is seriously the only explanation I have.

[Chromatix]

I'm convinced that there's a set of corrupt and/or incompetent driving examiners somewhere, and that must be how people like that get licences.

With that said, can you imagine someone like him using the phone while driving?

[dalesys]

...With that said, can you imagine someone like him using the phone while driving?

Not to worry. I'll bet he never uses his phone while driving...

He's too involved in his on-line gaming.

[blas]

Your brother drives exactly like my boyfriend. He also doesn't understand the concept of gradually braking. What's also awesome is part of his ADHD is that he can never remember where anything is, mix it with that he's one of "those" people who are always zig zag dashing from lane to lane to lane out of boredom, and he never times it right so that he's in the lane he needs to be.....oh, it's a nightmare. I almost always drive. I am too afraid he's going to kill me.

Oh, and what I love most is if you dare, and I mean dare try and tell him to slow down or that the turn is coming up, he goes into a rage. He has screamed at me, I mean, ear piercingly loud "YOU DO NOT TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" "DON'T TELL ME HOW TO DRIVE!!!!"

[Ironclad Alibi]

At this point, he goes through the red light. Luckily, we missed the truck hitting us. He looks all shocked and then yells at me.

T: RENA! Why was that guy turning! We should have the right of way.

R: IT WAS OUR RED LIGHT! HE PROBABLY HAD THE TURN SIGNAL! (the rest of this was probably cursing and thanking some divine deity for the truck not killing us)

T: No it wasn't.

I suggest it is time for you to stop riding with him. If you're riding together, you drive. If he insists on driving, get a taxi. It'll be cheaper in the long run.

You said you share a car. Who owns the car? If you own it, forbid him to drive. If your parents own it, explain what is happening to them. If he owns it, get a taxi.

And if he doesn't have a license, he doesn't get to drive anymore. Tell the police if neccessary. He should not be driving a car.

[pitmonkey]

Where in our glorius state are you so I can be on the look out for your brother.

[Rena_Muffin]

Where in our glorius state are you so I can be on the look out for your brother.

Be very wary in Vancouver. That's all I'll say.

So Blas wanted some more of the brother stories. I figure I'll deliver them.

Now, before we begin this next little section of the chronicles there are a few things I'd like to clarify. The car we have is our parent's, we just get to drive it because my "precious younger brother" cannot be bothered to take the bus (despite the fact I took it for 2 years dealing with all the "interesting" people that ride it as well). They counter the various warnings and tales I have told them about my brother's driving with telling me that we're family, he deserves to drive the car as much as me, etc. Basically, it's probably not going to be until my brother actually injures or kills someone that my parents may actually step in.

Now I'm going to admit I'm not the world's best driver. I got my license at 20 (For a long time I had an overwhelming fear of driving cause I thought I would do something wrong and the car would blow up) and about a year after I got mine, my brother got his license (at age 19). I'm overly cautious, though this has eased up quite a bit since I've been driving, but my brother considers my overly cautious nature as me being an incompetant driver and in my brother's mind because he got his license earlier than I did, he believes himself to be the superior driver. This is all despite the fact that he has gotten into a (kinda) accident before.

Which is out next little story.

My family has three cars split among the four of us. My mom drives an excellent Mazda MX6, my dad drives an SUV that could survive a zombie apocalypse, and my brother and I divide between the two of us a nice little blue car (make and model continuously forgotten since I am not the most educated person when it comes to cars). We mostly stay with these cars, though occasionally I'll borrow my mom or dad's car when the blue car isn't available and my brother loves driving my dad's SUV around.

One of these days, my brother got permission to take my dad's SUV to go to the movies or something like that. Dad was parked in the garage, mom in the driveway, and I'm parked on the curb because I was retired to the couch this day with a really bad cold. I don't know too much of how it happened but I awoke from my half awake cold stupor when there is a loud crunch outside and I hear my mom yell. I stumble outside to see my mom, dad, and brother crowded around the front of the mazda all talking and looking at the car. Apparently, my brother hit the front of the mazda when backing out of the garage in the SUV. I though there would have been more damage since there was that loud crunch but the mazda and SUV only had a few scratches and the mazda had a slight dent. I did get bragging rights for a week however since I have never gotten in any sort of accident.

In addition to hitting my mom's car when backing out, my brother also nearly hit a pedestrian while yelling at me two weeks after the accident. It was at night and he was driving because he'd stolen the keys from me and wanted to drive. I wouldn't have agreed to this but he and I argued in the parking lot of the school for ten minutes, and then he tried to leave me there when he saw I wasn't about to back down from the fact he should not be driving. After him driving off a few yards I finally got in when I saw I was not going to win and it was raining (it's Washington, it's always raining).

We're driving down the hill and the lights on one of our lighted crosswalks starts going off. Now, when this situation comes up I have this typical response when driving.

1. Stop, check for person.

2. Remain stopped waiting for person to cross.

3. Make sure no other people are crossing before continuing.

My brother has this response.

1. Ignore lights.

2. Don't stop.

3. Zoom by nearly hitting person who is crossing.

At the time I'm writing this, he's gotten better about this (probably because of the increased police patrolling our school to deal with the speeding problem that actually got a person hit by a car. However, as we were driving down the hill, my brother demonstrated his traditional method of dealing with crosswalks.

He was yelling at me for calling him a few choice words in our arguement in the parking lot. I kept telling him to watch the road and he kept interrupting me to point out that HE got his license a whole earlier than I had and HE was a better driver than I was and all that jazz. The crosswalk light has been lit for sometime and I can see someone starting to cross. I tell him to stop. I'm going to spare you all a conversation similar to the one done at the red light before, but after telling me off he goes through the crosswalk. The person was okay, the car zoomed by just in front of them, but once I pulled myself off the ceiling of the car my brother and I got into another fight concerning how you drive at crosswalks that went on until we went home and I slammed the door in his face (I was ticked). He did get a lecture (kinda) for this one because mom and dad learned what had happened when I was refusing to even talk or awknowledge him for the rest of the night.

I'll post more stories about the little idiot if people continue to enjoy them. Like I said, he's gotten better, but he's still a very scary driver.

[blas]

I love these stories. Your brother is such a terrible driver!

I worry for your safety, though. Please try to not accompany him anywhere, or try your best to be the driver. Seriously. I want you to stay alive!

If you want a dumb boyfriend story in return, I'll give you a quickie before I go to bed, as I promised something for something.

There is an Asian buffet that bf and I frequent on the weekends. We've been there many, many, many times.

Part of bf's problems is, as I addressed before, he can never rememeber things, oftentimes where places even are! I don't even get it, but whatever. Anyway, we barely make it to the intersection alive (bf and his refusal to be in the proper lane he needs to be in until the last minute), then without thinking, he just barrels into the middle of the intersection to turn into the parking lot of the buffet, and everyone approaching has to stop because he's in no position to back up or wait without being hit or hitting someone. Naturally, I'm embarrassed because he just did not even THINK before doing that.

Then, we turn into the parking lot. Mind you, it's late October and about 7:00 pm, so it's pitch black outside (one of the many reasons I hate fall and winter). Not that that truly matters, because this was really, really stupid.

Bf's phone starts chirping. It's in a little cubby hole by his CD player.

He can't ignore it for 30 seconds while we find a spot and park. He needs to find out who is calling him, badly.

As he reaches for his phone....THHHHHHHHHHHHHUUUUUAAAADUMMMMP!!!

We go up and violently over a median that's right by the entrance of the parking lot.

I should have known better, but I didn't think and just screamed his name and started ripping in to him. He deserved it, yes, but with him, if you even start on his driving or mistakes he makes, he loses his shit.

And he lost it. He screamed at the top of his lungs "STOP YELLING AT ME! THAT SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN THERE! ANYONE COULD HAVE RAN OVER THAT!"

It's a median on the side of the parking lot, designed so you don't run it over, so you stay in the parking lot. People paying attention wouldn't run it over.

To this very day, he still swears up and down that that embankment should NOT be there, and there was no way he couldn't have hit it. Oh, but wait, I'm not allowed to bring up stupid stuff he does. Oops, just did.

[Rena_Muffin]

Don't worry Blas, I'm pretty good about making sure I'm the one driving, the only exception being when I was in Vicoden and I was not allowed to drive, and he's been getting better. Slowly. Like, time's a snails pace by a million, and that's his pace. I'm more worried about you and your bf. You appear to be a saint for putting up with him, if my bf yelled at me for putting forth a concern over my life, let's just say he wouldn't be walking too well for a couple days. Also I'm doubting he would be able to eat solid food as well.

[Chromatix]

Has your brother been taught by a professional driving instructor at all?

Over here at least, most driving instructors have cars fitted with a second brake pedal (or sometimes even full dual controls) so they can intervene if the student does something dangerous, or fails to react to a hazard. If the instructor has to use those controls during a typical lesson, the student is not yet ready to take their test.

[blas]

That never stopped kids from driving safely and perfectly while in class and taking their test, then proceeding to be idiots thereafter.

[tollbaby]

It's too bad you can't really install some sort of dashboard camera without him noticing. It'd be nice to be able to show your parents and say, "See? He isn't responsible enough to drive the car."