Thanks to an unfortunate speed limit in Central New York, I have been taking an online defensive driving course.  It is an excruciating experience.  The course is a mandatory six hours, which means that the viewer can’t advance to the next slide until an allotted amount of time passes.  The only explanation for how the time limits were created must be that the person who set them did so to optimize my frustration with the situation.

For example, the slide titled, “Should I wear a seatbelt?” had a 100 second playback.  The short answer is yes.  Also, the long answer was yes.  When I smashed down on the next slide button, a screen kindly reminded me that I was required to wait 100 seconds before I could advance to the next slide (as required by New York State law).  It also was kind enough to remind me that the time it took me to read that notification would not count towards the time limit.

The worst part of this whole process is that the time I wait for the next slide just fills me with road rage.  And as I learned from a 450 second slide, road rage is bad.  Another problem with the program is that the timing of the slides isn’t usually long enough for me to go and read something else somewhere on the internet.  I’m too nervous about going one second over the time limit and having to sit through extra minutes of the class.  I hate them.

One important item I learned is that AAA no longer recommends 10 and 2 as the ideal hand positions while driving.  9 and 3 or even (gasp) 8 and 4 provide the driver with ideal hand position for safe deployment of the airbags.

On a somewhat related note, I’ve recently been thinking that the speed limit everywhere in the country should be raised by 10-15 MPH.  For as long as I can remember, the speed limit has been the same, but cars have gotten safer and stronger and better in every way.  One would think that we could now safely drive 65 on I-95 (everyone drives 80 anyway).  To make my case even stronger, the defensive driving class told me that the majority of injuries from accidents happen at intersections not on the highway.

Welp, time’s up for the “Headrests” slide, so I guess I’m done here.

Note – If anyone from DMV or traffic court is reading this, please keep in mind that I was probably hacked.