So school started back last week here in Austin. I don’t have kids…so how did I know school started back last week?
Traffic.
There are suddenly ~200,000 more cars on the road during my morning commute than there were the week before. And they’re the worst kind of drivers, too: soccer moms in their overkill-SUVs and stupid mini-vans carting their proginy off to school (there should be a law prohibiting anybody who drives a mini-van from ever being in the left lane).
And while we’re busy making unenforceable laws…there should be a law that requires all children to take the bus to school. How many kids fit on one yellow school bus? 60? 80? Well, that would be 60-80 less cars, vans, and SUVs clogging my lanes and trying to run me over every morning.
Looks like I’ll just have to start getting up earlier than the soccer moms (which means getting on the road by 6:30 a.m. rather than 7:00 a.m.
/soapbox
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Oh how I hate the use of the obvious-target-with-no-real-meaning of the “soccer mom”. Bonus annoyance–mention of SUV and minivan. If you had kids, you would appreciate The Minivan. There’s nothing wrong with mothers and fathers taking their kids to school. Jeezus.
Of course, the real target isn’t the mothers but the fact that neighborhoods and cities are being designed that prevent kids from getting to school with their own (increasingly obese) feet. When I was a kid we lived in an first generation suburb that allowed me to walk or bike to school. However, when we moved to a new suburb in the South the only way to my high school was along an arterial street that I’d be insane to ride along. Of course, by the time the kids turned sixteen they were filling the parking lot with hundreds of cars even though they were coming from the same neighborhoods at the same time!
I agree that buses should be encouraged and kids driving to school should be strongly discouraged (also from the fact that it was probably a yearly occurance that some kid was killed in his car). But the real way to solve the problem is to design the neighborhood so that it is dense enough to support walking and to put the school within that neighborhood.
“Person” (obviously a minivan-driving soccer mom) — I didn’t say there was anything wrong with minivans…just that they shouldn’t be allowed in the fast lane of traffic…because 99% of the time that I see a vehicle moving too slowly in the fast lane and congesting the flow of traffic — it’s a minivan.
And yes, there is something wrong with mothers and fathers taking their kids to school…when there are school buses available that are already doing the exact same thing!
How many Austin-area hippies do you think have screamed about the “war for oil”, and yet insist on driving their little brats to school instead of putting them on the bus? Hint: most of them.
Robbie, my kid will ride the bus eventually, but for now, it’s fun for me to take him to school. It’s kindergarten, so his first experience at a school where he stays all day, eats lunch there, etc. It’s really a big deal for him. I like walking to the classroom with him, seeing his classroom and all the other kids, watching him walk in and sit down, being able to interact for a moment with his teacher, etc. I guess that makes me a selfish American.
I’m not a minivan driving soccer mom. I covet a minivan, though. I am a dad. No soccer yet. And my minivan would not be slowing you down in the fast lane.
The “soccer mom” stereotype is just tired to me.
Besides the fact that kids are dangerously obese these days? And the fact that when they drop off their darlings they block traffic during rush hour?
Oh Robbie, you’ve gone and done it now… once you step on the toes of a KinderMom/Dad, you’re completely doomed and can kiss goodbye the chance of ever uttering a political oath. You’re wasted, man!
I’m not a soccer mom… thanks to my son, I’m a baseball mom (whew!). I don’t drive a minivan because I’d never want to psychologically scar my children that way… besides, a red sports car gets better gas mileage and maintains my kids’ level of social coolness with their peers.
While I do drive my son to school (we don’t live in his school’s boundry), I can empathize and do share your hatred for the ‘soccer moms’ in the left-hand lane.
And I don’t care how you do the math… there is too something wrong with minivans.
there is too something wrong with minivans.
Minivans are bad, SUV’s and sports cars are cool? Sounds like some successful marketing has occurred.
I don’t think minivans are inherently bad. It’s just that they shouldn’t be in the left hand lane impeding the flow of faster traffic (namely, me).
Minivans are considerbaly underpowered compared to their SUV counterparts. That might not be such a big deal in some places, but here in the hills of west Austin, it’s sucks when the minivan in the left hand lane is getting passed by bicyclist who have more hp.
Also, there just seems to be something about the mindset and driving style of someone who drives minivans. Could minivans motor along in the fast lane without holding up other fast drivers? Of course they could. Problem is that most drivers of minivans are going to do the exact speed limit and are oblivious to the stacked line of cars behind them.
Most definitely, Preston! When I traded my (massively cool) SUV in for a pretty-damn cool sports car… the prices at the pump sold me.
With all that money I’m saving at the pump, I can put fatten my collision premium to offset costs of (un)intentionally rear-ending that minivan in the left-hand lane.
(I apologize for being a tad ornery today… I’ve been dealing with Time Warner, and feeling a little agressive this afternoon)
It can all be explained in one sentence. Most of the people complaining about the war in Iraq and the push for getting the oil are those people who drive gas guzzlers. If they want to complain and cry, then drive a honda.