White Truck Wednesday: 8.14.13

   My theory, as most do, began simply as an observation, sparked by an annoyance.

   Driving Metroplex freeways - mainly 75 south from Collin County toward Dallas - I began noticing more and more a certain type of vehicle causing me the most anxiety. The white pickup.

   White trucks riding cars' bumpers, the drivers regularly pounding on their steering wheels for traffic to part for their apparently more important path. White trucks dangerously swerving in and out of congestion, often illegally using the shoulder as their personal passing lane. And white trucks, manned by a single driver, arrogantly and unlawfully using the HOV lane.

   Consider this my weekly ode to white trucks, the most aggressive, dangerous and soulless vehicles on our roadways ...

   My question today is simple, yet two-fold. And, yes, it is directed at the drivers of white pickups:
   1. Why do you extend your right arm across the back of your seat while driving?
   2. What the what with all this backing into parking spaces?
   As you've come to expect, I have a couple theories.
   Putting the arm across the seat isn't an attempt to pretend you usually have a girlfriend beside you. No, that's too easy of an explanation. The truth is that, because you drive a pickup, you fancy yourself as a macho man's man. And because you drive the most invisible vehicle on the road, you have to take drastic measures to gain attention. From your driving to, yes, your driving posture.
   As in, "I'm such a big, burly hunk of a man that even the cab of my big ol' truck can barely contain me. With all this testosterone oozing from my manliness, I've just got to stretch out and take up a lot of room. Hey, look at me being all big and spread out and barely comfortable. Because, ya know, I'm sooooo big."
   No?
   Okay then, try to lay upon me a legit reason for backing into a parking space.
   Women do not do this. Well-adjusted men do not do this. Only insecure males who are also inclined to rest their arm atop an empty seat do this.
   Don't come at me with convenience or some half-baked laws of physics or inertia or somethingorother. It's not easier to back into a parking space than it is to pull forward into one. In fact - if nothing else you have to first drive past the spot you're choosing - it's more difficult. And it's down right rude if you're taking the time to do it while other cars wait.
   And if you think it's so difficult to back out of a parking space, maybe I'd like you to reconsider driving in the first place.
   Admit it, the real reason for backing into a parking space is to get noticed. To stand out. To trick yourself into thinking you're different - and better - than the pip-squeak car next to you. To construct your own personal VIP, because every other aspect of your vanilla life doesn't provide a smidge of special for you.
   So keep on keepin' on, White Truck driver. Continue slinging your burly arm behind the seat while you and your macho vehicle back manly into parking spots.
   But I'm on to you.
   And I'm on to this week's White Truck wackiness ...

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   A driver runs a red light, almost hits pedestrians, leaves a crash scene and then throws a dog out the window of his ... White Truck.
   Two men are found murdered by a swimming pool in a ... White Truck.
   Man fires a high-powered revolver at another vehicle while driving his ... White Truck.
   Five people are killed when their car is hit by a drunk driver behind the wheel of a ... White Truck.
   Driver makes an illegal lane change and causes a three-car wreck in his ... White Truck.
   Drive safely.

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