The Honkers

We've taken a lot of road trips lately which means we have been doing a lot of driving. I think it must be because of this huge amount of time spent in the car that more interesting things have been happening to us on the road.

One time, for a variety of reasons, it was necessary for Eric to make it off the highway via an exit that happened to be several lanes away when he noticed it. As he alternately speeded up and slowed down to navigate over to the exit, he leaned on the horn to let people know that an apparently deranged driver was coming through whether they liked it or not.

Once safely off the exit ramp, Eric leaned back in his seat, took a breath and mused, "I think that's the first time I have used the horn offensively*."

It wasn't the last.

On our way home from Tahoe a few weeks ago we encountered a Prius driving in the dark without its lights on. This is a very dangerous situation, of course, because you can't see it and it is very easy to change lanes into it or otherwise unintentionally cause a fiery deadly crash (and this not even considering the recall-related dangers).

Eric, concerned about this shadowy lurker speeding down the highway near us, tried to alert him to what was going on. Behind him, he flashed his lights repeatedly. Nothing. He pulled up next to him and honked and gestured wildly, causing the Prius to speed up and drive away from us as fast as it could - with its lights still off.

Eric pursued, pulled in front of him and handed Andrew (riding in the back seat) the flashlight from the glove compartment to shine back at the Prius driver. "Do you know Morse code?" asked Eric in complete seriousness. Still no lights.

So Eric did the only remaining sensible thing to do: he sped away as fast as he could to make sure that he would see the inevitable fiery crash in the rear view mirror rather than ahead of us on the road.


*As opposed to "defensively," not "in an offending way" though perhaps one could consider it both.