So, the other day I drove from the Register office building on Main Street to the Ag Center on Highway 169 for an eye exam.

I was close to being involved in an accident three times in that short jaunt.

First, I waited my turn at the four-way stop at Main and Seventh to turn onto Seventh Street, but someone still jumped into the intersection when it was not their turn and almost clobbered me.

Then, a block down on Seventh Street, someone who was stopped on Moore Street decided to pull out right in front of me.

And, the third time was on Highway 169 itself when a semi-truck pulled out right in front of me.

Honestly, I thought my vehicle must somehow be invisible and other drivers could not see my old white Ford Explorer. Perhaps I could make a fortune by marketing a technique for making things invisible for stealth work and magicians if I could figure out why other drivers can’t see me.

You may think this is another column about all the poor driving in this world, and you would be right.

But, lately, I have noted that it is not just me taking note of all the bad drivers in the country. Others are now doing their own bit of whining about it.

So many people are in a big hurry to get somewhere. They speed down the highway, they zip down main streets, and they even clip through residential areas going as fast as they can.

And nobody stops at a stop sign anymore. Heck, they barely slow down. Another issue is turning. Doesn’t anyone know how to make a 90 degree left turn from one street to the other? So many people just turn using part of the opposite lane.

You can be stopped at a stop sign and someone coming from the right turns left, right in front of your vehicle, so close that you are sure it is going to clip your front fender with theirs.

Same deal for the roundabouts. You can just see that a driver coming up fast does not want to slow down – much less stop – at a roundabout. They all want to zip through it just as fast as they can.

And, if you are in the roundabout with the right-of-way, they glare at you and seem to be mad that you made them have to slow down or even (gasp!) stop.

Again, it is not just me. Lately lots of folks have related their roundabout near misses to me.

The only good news is that the Minnesota Department of Transportation says that they like roundabouts because while there are crashes in a roundabout, there are very few serious injuries because of them.

But wait, I have more complaints about drivers. It has to do with being courteous, like letting someone back out of a parking space, or giving space to pedestrians and bike riders.

And, wait for it, actually stop and let someone walk across the street at an intersection. (Another gasp!) Yes, come to a stop and let the people walk safely across the street. Maybe even smile and wave at them.

As bad as drivers can be in rural Minnesota, it’s even worse in the big cities.

And, as bad as they are in the bigger Minnesota cities, there is another place that is pretty scary.

California.

After just returning from a trip out there I can report that there just plain is a lot of traffic there. Day and night.

Everyone goes fast, is in a hurry and they don’t want to slow down for anything. The slower traffic has to move over to the far right lane. That would be the ones going only slightly over the speed limit. Because, even if you do 80 miles per hour, you are probably going to get passed.

Until it all comes to a stop, due to the heavy amounts of traffic at a place where one highway joins another. Or there has been a bad accident and all that traffic becomes stop-and-go.

Except for motorcycles.

As I have noted before, it is perfectly legal for motorcycles to drive between two lanes full of cars, as long as they don’t speed. Scariest thing ever.

Except for maybe the cases of road rage out there. We saw one incident on the Fourth of July when two vehicles pulled off the highway and into a convenience store parking lot. There was a lot of yelling and threatening, but thankfully, no fighting or guns.

So, here, just in time for summer time vacation trips, are a few words of advice.

Slow down, stop at stop signs, yield to pedestrians, don’t do distracted driving and don’t drive impaired.

Be courteous!

And for goodness sake, take some time to learn how to drive in a roundabout. I am getting kind of tired of wondering if you are going to hit me as I go through one.

So are a lot of other folks, it seems.