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| Kelly Hacker is a freshman journalism major and writes 'HackAttack' for the Daily News. Her views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper. |
Driving 800 miles to the Eastern Seaboard will drive you insane.
Yes, folks, I just returned from my Spring Break road trip to North Carolina -- 26 hours round-trip with nothing but a good friend, a radio and a walkie-talkie to communicate with one of the other cars in our caravan.
The passengers of the other car turned their walkie-talkie off after hearing us sing along to the radio for an hour or so.
Other drivers annoy me. The concept of using a turn signal when changing lanes has not gotten through to many people on the road. Cutting people off is rude, and not letting people know you're about to cut them off is even ruder -- and hard on their brakes.
In order to get this across to rude drivers (in addition to the traditional honking and flipping off), my friend and I made a sign that said, "Nice turn signal," and held it up to the window when we passed people who had committed this sin.
This really irritated people, making it a lot of fun. One guy even thought it necessary to weave back and forth between the lanes behind us after seeing our sign -- again without his turn signal.
Even more irritating than the inconsiderate driver is the sport utility vehicle. There is nothing more irritating than the idea of one person driving a vehicle built to hold six only three blocks to buy a gallon of milk.
Unless you have a large family or a group of people who travel together often, buying an SUV is generally not an economically -- let alone environmentally -- sound decision, mostly because of the amount of gas they chew through.
The Ford Expedition has a 35-gallon gas tank and gets 11 to 15 miles per gallon in the city and 15 to 21 mpg on the highway; ironically enough, Ford's Web site listed the gas mileage for its Excursion, one of the largest non-commercial vehicles on the road, as not available. Honda's new Insight can get up to 68 mpg.
Also annoying about the SUV is that the bigger they are, the lesser their driver's ability to park squarely in a parking space, making it impossible for other drivers to park next to them and still exit their vehicle.
America's love affair with enormous gas-guzzling cars is not helping us wean ourselves from our dependency on foreign oil.
One group known as the Foreign Oil Independence League (FOIL) has launched an ad campaign (that has yet to gain much momentum) complete with posters that claim, "Foreign Oil ... Funds TERRORISM," playing on America's fear of terrorism harbored by nations that are members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Be that as it may, American money is still leaving the American economy to pay for something to burn.
Why isn't the extra money we spend on fueling our gigantic SUVs going toward the development of an alternative fuel source, such as ethanol (a grain alcohol made with corn)?
We even have cars powered by fuel cell technology available, such as Honda's FCX, and yet we're compelled by the old "bigger is better" line to purchase cars we could live in comfortably.
As long as we have this mentality, SUVs will reign as kings of the road. At least my little two-door car and I will be part of the resistance.
Write to Kelly at knhacker@bsu.edu
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