On Driver-peeking, a Favorite Southern Pastime

Driver peeking affects all southerners a little bit, whether we know it or not. If you're not familiar with the practice, Driver-peeking in its early stages is the act of glancing casually at whoever's behind the steering wheel of the nearest car in incoming traffic while you're driving. Harmless, right? Well sure. We all do it, after all, which of course makes it perfectly acceptable and indeed a positive trait in the eyes of the vast majority of southern society. No one gets hurt when you check to confirm that the moron in front of you who waited through forty-seven perfectly safe opportunities to turn left out of Cracker Barrel was in fact a wrinkly 122-year-old. It does not mean you secretly dream of watching a liberal news channel, not going to church on Sundays, putting mayo on your chicken sandwich, or dating a black guy if you sometimes check to see if the person driving the weaving, beat-up Mercury in front of you actually looks like he has a valid reason to possess his handicap license tag.

But I'm here to tell you that Driver-peeking is not the time-honored act of selfless public service its practitioners would have you believe. Consider for a moment the following noble scenario: you complain of stomach pain at work on Wednesday right before you go home; on Thursday you spend half your productive office hours sitting in the bathroom compressing a Whoopie cushion and bellowing things like "SHUTTLE [KEVIN, MIKEY, CLAIRA-BELL] IS CLEARED FOR LIFTOFF!"; by the time Friday rolls around, your boss calls YOU to ask you to take the day off work. Everything is hunky-dory until Monday, when Johnny Jerk-face in the cubicle next to you decides to strike up a smiling conversation about how you did at putt putt Friday. He answers your dumbfounded stare by good-naturedly explaining that he saw you pulling out of Pirate's Cove the other night instead of watching the road as he drove by at a high rate of speed while controlling his massive American made SUV. 

"I only went there to use the bathroom!"

My friends, Johnny is a Driver-peeker. He is completely oblivious to the fact that he did anything wrong, crossed any boundaries, invaded your privacy, or that he has tact on par with Sarah Palin. He doesn't realize that you're now going to be self-conscious everywhere you go, because you're afraid of who might be watching. He is not a bad person, but he has a serious problem, and should be treated accordingly.

For sake of brevity, I won't go into the details of the other example I'd prepared, wherein I asked you to consider what it would be like to be an attractive young blonde woman who, every day as you drive down the road, has to pretend not to notice as a compensating Ford F350 Lariat matches speed with you in the next lane over so its occupants can gawp at you like nerds at a robot race. Suffice it to say they aren't as flattering as they would like to think.

I know that Driver-peeking will never be fully flushed from our modern culture. It will likely even grow worse with time. But that is why we should all raise awareness now, before it's too late. Pass the message, be well, and next time you feel the urge to laugh at the guy who just passed you mining his nose, remember that you really should have been watching the road.

Have you had first hand experience Driver-peeking? Have you ever been a victim of the deed?