I'm back from a long hiatus to let y'all know, just as we go into the holiday weekend, that I have had it with y'all driving. For real. Chicagoans, Illinoisans, I love all of you — you know Chicago is my beating heart. But I cannot stand — cannot stand your driving. According to a state-by-state study last year by GMAC Insurance, Illinois drivers are the 40th worst — Rhode Islanders, by the way, are the worst and those goodie-goodie hippy Oregonians are number one — but I don't believe it. We are the worst.

When I run for office, one of my campaign platforms will be that we mandate triple the amount of in-car training in order to get a driver's license (this will come with a stipend for low and moderate income families to pay for the private lessons Chicagoans need). Also, I will personally appoint a commission to rewrite the driver's ed curriculum. I will also pledge to personally edit the document that commission produces.

Every chapter will begin like this:
"When driving, THE LEFT LANE IS EXCLUSIVELY FOR PASSING, NO MATTER WHAT IS GOING ON WITH YOU OR WHERE YOU ARE EXITING OR HOW FAST THE PEOPLE IN THE OTHER LANES ARE DRIVING OR HOW NICE YOUR CAR IS OR IF YOU FEEL YOU ARE GOING A SUFFICIENT SPEED OR YOUR ARE AN ALDERMAN."

I gotta be honest, though. I'm not sweating most of y'all. Downstaters — I have to give it up for your driving skills. I hate to do it, but it's true. My fellow Cook Countians — a 90-year-old driving a Model-T on the expressway near Quincy is twenty times the driver any of you are. You are very bad drivers. Just awful. Awful. For a while I tried to pin it on people commuting from Lake County and Indiana, but it's just not the case.

For all the time I spent going back and forth to the West Side from my place in the Tri-Taylor area, both for work and socially, I was convinced there couldn't any expressway be worse than that. Then, my new job forced me to take the Kennedy every day. Drivers on the Kennedy make the Eisenhowers look like some sort of genetic blend of a Chess Grandmaster and Mario Andretti with bionically enhanced super-vision and a bat's sonar gained through a The Fly-esque scenario. Also, the ability to see the future. That's how bad Kennedy drivers are.

The problem with the Eisenhower, of course, is that it starts to get a lot of left-handed exits, especially Westbound. This convinces morons that they should drive in the left-hand lane, since they'll be exiting at some point in, you know, five or six miles. Morons: stop it. The left lane is for passing only. THE LEFT LANE IS FOR PASSING ONLY. You're getting off at Central Ave.? Gonna shoot up to Cathy's Diner on Chicago? Me too. You don't need to ride 50 miles an hour in the left lane starting at Independence, you joker.

Every chapter of the new Drivers Ed books will contain this passage, which will actually be written across the chest of a pop-up of a naked Harold Smith, of the Smith System of Driving shame:

"DO NOT HIT YOUR BRAKES ON THE HIGHWAY UNLESS YOU FIND IT ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. SWERVING TO THE SHOULDER IS ACTUALLY BETTER THAN HITTING YOUR BRAKES. STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP HITTING YOUR BRAKES TO SLOW DOWN!"

It is very dangerous to even tap your brakes on the highway, because at the speeds people are going, reaction time is considerably decreased. So they see brake lights go on, and they may panic and slam on their brakes — this will cause the people behind them, assuming there is an accident or near accident up ahead where they can't see, will slam on their brakes. The chain reaction can go back miles. Quit it! Slow down! Or use the shoulder! One thing Cook County drivers do that can push even the most patient, loving man — such as myself — to apocalyptic levels of rage is they do the ol' mash-n-mash. Instead of actually concentrating on maintaining a speed by light pressure on the accelerator, they will just mash on it to get up above their desired speed, then mash the brake to get back down. Mash-n-mash. They figure that, over the course of their journey, their mean speed will come out to be adequate. The problem with this, besides the fact that it is insane, is that it makes everybody else follow suit; they see you speed up, and they speed up. They see you mash your brakes, and they mash their brakes.

Allow me to teach you how to drive: by using the balls of your feet and applying light pressure, and by anticipating slowdowns by "aiming high in steering" (i.e., looking past the car directly the frick in front of you), you can keep a safe two-second distance between you and the car in front of you without using your brakes EVER.

That's right. I'm bringing it back to "aim high in steering." And don't even make me get to the IPDE process. Identify-Predict-Decide-Execute in Chicago has transformed into IDGAGD — I Don't Give a Good Damn.

My goodness, you all are really quite terrible.

I'm imagining a number of bicyclists are reading this with quite a bit of that annoying, I-ride-a-bike-everywhere sense of superiority. I know you didn't think I'd come back after almost a year and not call you all out. Because guess what? You're not part of the solution. Y'all are part of the problem. While I salute your dedication to your own health and lessening our city's congestion problem, I detest you for your almost comical hypocrisy. Before I get the avalanche of "you can't paint with a broad brush," please go back and re-read the above. Thanks.

Many, many years ago, man developed rods and cones in his eyes. These rods and cones were marvelous and brought us many gifts, such as the ability to perceive color. Many, many years later, man developed neuroscience. Somewhere in there, they decided that different colors affected our neurochemistry differently... Ah, screw it. RED MEANS STOP. Has it ever meant otherwise? I mean I know red implies blood, or Christmas, but it MEANS stop. Stop! That goes for you bikers too! Even if you don't think you see anybody nearby and you feel silly sitting at a red light on a bike.

Guess what? With your over-sized grown person helmet, pants leg rolled up, and messenger bag that would look comical on somebody four years younger than you, we're all laughing at you already. Get over yourself and sit at that damn light until it is green. You think this isn't a problem? Heat some pierogis and head over to the intersection of Milwaukee and Noble, where you can catch an only-in-Chicago spectacular: Half-Hip Morons Nearly Splattered On Windshields. The devil-may-care attitude so many people take at this intersection — which is a T-intersection one-way with a school, lulling half-wits into a false sense of security — allows their true nature to show. They only want cars to obey traffic rules. They're more than happy to do what they go to do to get where they need to get faster.

Part of my candidacy platform? Triple the fine for bikers who violate the rules of the road. Why? Because in most cases if a car creeps out into the intersection on red you'll get a fender bender — a biker's likely to get killed or worse. Blow a red on a bike, even at some abandoned intersection on the West Side where you don't even get cited for driving the wrong way down one-ways, and it's $200.

I was considering starting in on the sin that transcends means of conveyance — that would be the turn signal, or as we call it around here, nothing. But hey, baby steps.

After instituting my reforms (remember, this is after I get elected to the fictitious, control-over-drivers-education office I just invented), I will resign.

But I will also make a pact with you, Chicagoans. If things aren't all better after 5 years, I'll move to Oregon.