An Open Letter To The Guy Driving Like A Jerk During Last Week’s Storm

I complain about Hudson Valley drivers quite a lot lately...a part of me thinks maybe too much, while another part of me rationalizes with the fact that incidents like these happening on the regular, so it must be warranted.

REMEMBER WHEN: Route 9 or Rainbow Road?

Anyway.

The storm that rolled through much of the Hudson Valley last Thursday night did some pretty bad damage to a number of areas, mine included. Trees down, hanging wires, debris all over, and of course there's the people who couldn't give a damn about all those things and still driving like they're in a race-car.

This has been bothering me so much that five days later I'm still angry - story time.

Were You Driving on Rt. 82 or Rt. 28 (Old Hopewell Road) in Hopewell During The Storm on Thursday 9/7

My daughter had karate class on Thursday evening at 5:30pm, and when she was done we stopped to grab some pizza in Hopewell before heading back home to Wappingers. The sky got really dark all of a sudden, and we heard some booms and decided to head home before the skies opened up. Turns out we were a little late on the call, because the rain started coming down, thunder and lightning the minute we got onto Rt. 82.

Just before the intersection of Lake Walton and Rt. 82, on a darker stretch of road, I noticed the car in front of me slow down, then swerve to the center and almost into the oncoming lane of traffic so I slowed down. Little did I know a really large portion of a tree, not just a branch, was laying across the roadway, causing me to almost come to a complete stop. This apparently angered the driver behind me, as I got a honk and a flash of the headlights - strike one.

As I progressed onto Old Hopewell Road I kept my distance from the car in front of me because the trees were swaying and stuff was flying into the roadways, but again noticed the car in front of me slowing down and swerving, and this time found an even larger tree down across the roadway blocking my entire lane. Obviously I had to slow down, but there was oncoming traffic so I came to a complete stop, and the same person, yes, the jerk I'm referring to in the title, legitimately blared their horn for a good 25 seconds complete with arms waving in the air, and I'm sure some fine choice words for me - strike 2 and 3.

it took everything I had not to get out of the car and go up to this person's window - I was livid. I put my car in park and then had to have a conversation with myself to not go off on this person with my young daughter in the car.

Take It Easy On The Roads Hudson Valley

Buddy - I don't think my Mazda CX-5 nor your SUV would make it over the tree that was blocking our lane, and I wasn't about to hit the oncoming traffic head on, so my only choice was to stop. If you weren't so close to me that it felt like you were in my trunk, maybe you would have been able to see that we were slowing down for something in the road.

I get it, people have places to be, but when bad weather hits and our roadways could be impacted, just think about the other people on the road and don't be a jerk...that's all I'm asking.