Why (do?) people piss me off!

I live in a Godforsaken country.

Don't get me wrong, I like this country, in itself it's innately a very nice country to live it.

The nature is mostly glorious and the conditions of living are comfortable, there is plenty of work for "the competent" although unfortunately, it also has its part of incompetent.

Did I mention incompetence is one of the things that piss me off the most?

Did I also mention how most of these incompetents manage to wind up in politics?

And then you will find me asking myself: "How does he/she manage keep his/her high-profile job???"

But I digress since this is not what I intended to talk about today. What I meant to speak about is people who piss me off.

If you don't mind I'll keep digressing for a moment or three for I might have explained myself badly a moment ago. It's not that MOST of the incompetent wind up in politics. It's actually quite backwards.

In fact, it's that most politicians are incompetent. There.

That is rather more exact.

Back on topic; On April 1st, as if it were a monumental practical joke on all of our province, our transport ministry implemented some new traffic laws. They more than doubled fines and driver's license point penalties for several offenses, such as speeding. This is fine for me as I seldom drive over the limit by a large enough margin to attract Smokey's attention.

But the other law is what really burns me for you see? They've also made it a traffic violation to be behind the wheel of a vehicle while using a cell phone.

The law is very clear about the cell phones, you're allowed to use it, as long as you don't HOLD THE CELLPHONE WHILE DRIVING.

Meaning that if the cellphone is somehow mounted on your dash like any other cockpit instrument, and you have some wired, or wireless apparatus going to your ear, you're golden.

This is where the problem is.

So in essence, we're not allowed to have a cellphone in our hands while we drive. I can imagine my conversation with the next police officer I can get a hold of:

Me: "So we cannot have the phone in our hands while driving, why?"

Him: "Because we want both hands to be free for you to drive your vehicle and having a conversation while holding a phone in your hand will distract you from actually driving the car."

Me: "What about smokers, they have to hold a cigarette in at least one of their hands, I don't recall ever seeing hands free cigarettes. Some of them have a cigarette while passengers are in their cars and they talk with them."

Him: "No, smoking is fine."

Me: "What about having a snack?"

Him: "It's still a violation but we mostly tolerate it unless there is an accident."

Me: "How about mothers that have babies in their back seats and are being distracted by them, I've seen them, they drive with one eye on the road -if that much- and the rest of their attention on their baby, some of them even jiggle toys in front of the baby to amuse it while at the same time hogging the passing lane."

Him: "No, that's fine."

Me: "What about GPS systems, some of them are handheld."

Him: "No, they're fine."

Me: "So let me make sure I understand, if I have a cell phone in my hands and I'm caught pushing a single button on it while behind the wheel, I get a 115$ fine and 3 demerit points but, I can program my destination in a GPS while I drive and this is ok?"

Him: "Yep."

Me: "How about if one of the passengers were to hold up the cell phone to my ear while I'm driving?"

Him: "h.. err.. I dunno. I'll have to ask."

Yep...

Yep...

So by now, the brighter crowd reading this, will have realized that when I mentioned the incompetent in the introduction, what I really meant to say was: "Our fucking ministry of transport is incompetent."

I'll limit my political rant by closing with the fact that if the opposition party had opposed this new law, the same way they opposed a law allowing the energy ministry to monitor and somewhat dictate what the sales price for petrol would be, they would have managed to look competent.

Instead they ignored it and it thereby passed at the parliament.

Conversely, I can't speak too proudly of drivers. It seems that nowadays, if you try to respect the speed limit people will honk, cut you off and then finish you off with a middle finger salute.

Like it's YOUR fault that the speed limit is unreasonably low.

And it's your fault that you really don't want to get a 600$ speeding ticket for driving 90km/h in a 70km/h zone, but that the bulk of the traffic navigates the same 70km/h zone in excess of 110km/h.

And that it's very rare that the police are actually out with a radar monitoring and handing tickets out. But then, it doesn't matter does it? After all, it's only illegal if you get caught no?

Well excuse me for not gambling 700$ with absolutely 0 chance of winning.