CAVEAT RAEDARIUS

Approximately 6% of my waking life now finds me behind the wheel of a large automobile. I numbly endure my commute, my mind a grim, featureless void save for the constant, unbroken flow of obscenities directed via ESP and withering scowls toward those with which I share the road. My prejudices against other drivers and the cars they inhabit, developed over two aggravation-filled decades of vehicular travel in Los Angeles, have been brought into sharp relief in recent months and today I hone them into a list of The Top Six Cars to Never Find Yourself Behind for your benefit. I leave off the gender and/or race-based offenders - you know who you are and besides, I'm not looking to start a riot here. I also skip over the more obvious, small-time transgressors i.e., taxicabs trolling for fares, late-model VW Bugs and buses, garbage trucks with their notoriously iffy brakes, Jesus Fish cars, ramshackle top-heavy Land Rover Discoveries, etc., and instead focus on the real culprits of offensive driving. If you find yourself on this list please, for god's sake and for the sanity of the rest of us, pull over and start walking. In the meantime, drivers beware.

6. Any Car with a Handicap Placard Displayed
I get it. You have a disability. Clearly. And it very well may have originated in a fiery, multi-car pileup and that would perfectly explain your Speed-Limit-Minus-10mph philosophy. But please understand that the rest of us would like to arrive at our destinations today, if possible, and would rather not line up behind you like baby ducks behind their gimpy mother. Here's a suggestion: let somebody else drive. Preferably somebody in a goddamn hurry.

Additional warning: a handicapped symbol actually printed on the license plate equals an additional 10mph slower.

5. Minivans or SUVs with Stick Figures of the Entire Family in the Rear Window

I appreciate the visual aid; this handy diagram in white lines which shows me, very clearly because I'm right on your goddamn bumper, exactly how many kids and pets, in descending height, are in this rolling Chucky Cheese of a vehicle. Through the sticky hand prints on the windows I can see Taylor, Dylan, Tyler, Morgan, Jackson, Tamsin, and Kaitlynn wreaking havoc while a Spongebob DVD plays and a dog barks. Mom seems unperturbed as she talks on the phone and applies mascara, unaware that she's straddling two lanes while traffic whizzes by. I'll read about their unfortunate encounter with a cement truck and/or jackknifed semi tomorrow morning and my drive to work will be just a wee bit faster.

4. Large American Cars with Elderly Drivers
Here's a thought to ponder (I know I certainly do): the older you get the less time you have left on this planet so don't waste it taking four times as long as necessary to get where you're going. Do not go gentle into that intersection. You need to rage, rage against the changing of the traffic light. It's not a covered wagon and it's not a mule train. It's a 1994 Lincoln Continental and that thing under your right foot is the accelerator, Gramps. Sure, your eyesight is shot, your reflexes and reaction time are shadows of their former selves, and your hearing is practically nonexistent, but these things should all be saying to you, "drive faster! FASTER!"

3. Volvos

Say, what's that creeping along in front of you with the brake lights permanently blaring and the blinker flashing a good quarter mile from the next intersection while the driver nervously grips the wheel and exudes an irritating cautiousness? Why, it's a Volvo, naturally. These cars have a reputation for being very safe... except when flattened from behind by a Greyhound bus going the speed limit. Did you know that Volvo dealerships are required to issue a Timidity Test to all potential buyers? It's true. If you are found to possess even the most scant trace of driver self-confidence you are hustled out the door with a "Hey, Mario Andretti, go buy a Camry instead!"

2. Mercedes

With the turn of the ignition the Nazi DNA of these cars somehow transfers to the driver and the rest of us have to then endure the resulting master race-ish, proudly-oblivious, road-owning attitude. We, the peon masses, are forced to constantly make sudden, evasive maneuvers as our German overlords turn or merge in front of us on a whim in a never-ending display of spectacular Teutonic hubris. Turn signals and rear-view mirrors are actually optional equipment in Mercedes, options apparently very seldom chosen.

Added bonus: older diesel models let you enjoy the gas-chambery stench of exhaust while being cut off.

1. Priuses (Prii?)

Legions of these hunchbacked, silvery eyesores now clog the freeway on-ramps, surface streets, and, worst of all, carpool lanes of our once proud and speedy city, each one driven - s l o w l y - by a self-righteous asshole (except you, Steve!) with one eye on the fuel economy gauge and the other anywhere but the rear-view mirror, all the while furiously patting themselves on the back for saving the planet while traffic stacks up behind. The name "Prius" was actually coined by shortening the word "Priapus", the Greek god of male genitalia. It's an exceptionally fitting name for a vehicle driven almost exclusively by total dicks. And, along the aesthetic lines of "if the medicine tastes bad it must be good for you', this is one fugly car. It looks like the inbred, hydrocephalic offspring of two Pontiac Azteks. It has the visual charm of a baby possum but in a race between a Prius and a baby possum, my money's on the possum.

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