Born and raised in Arizona, I’ve picked up on a few things I think all Arizonians can bond over. We all know that seasons don’t actually exist and have no idea what Day Light Saving Time is. We all know how bipolar the weather can be during monsoon season. The constant flood and dust storm alerts don’t even phase us anymore.

During the summers we can fry eggs on the sidewalk and bake cookies in our cars. We are the home of the university that is #1 in innovation and have 528,480,139,808 cacti per person. Speaking of cacti, they’re not the only pricks we have. Let’s talk about those lovely Arizona drivers.

Arizona drivers are a special breed of…special… to say the least. Here are the top five reasons why Arizona drivers are actually the worst:

101 ON THE 101

We have this freeway called the 101. What a nice name, right? However, I think Arizona drivers fail to realize that this is simply the name of the freeway and NOT the speed limit.

The tendency for Arizonians to speed does not just occur on the freeway; it happens everywhere.

There is this street called Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard and the speed limit is forty-five miles per hour. Seems like a pretty standard speed limit for a street that runs through a city, right?

Well, I was driving with my friend and a couple minutes into driving we were over half way to our destination. Normally the drive takes a little under half an hour to get there.

I was wracking my brain trying to figure out how we were getting there so quickly until I glanced at the speedometer. How fast we were going? NINETY. What’s the speed limit? FORTY-FIVE.

I cleared my throat and asked, “Hey, (insert any name here because I’m not about to reveal his real name to y’all) how fast are you going?” At this moment he glanced down, casually shrugged, and replied, “About 90 miles per hour,” to which I responded with, “And what’s the speed limit again?” He would not make eye contact with me, but I saw his foot slowly switch from the gas pedal to the break.

WHAT EVEN IS A BLINKER?

Blinker. Turn signal. Indicator. Turn Indicator. Trafficator. Directional Signal. Signal Light. So many names for something Arizona drivers still don’t know how to use.

There’s this little thingy that’s right next to your steering wheel on the left-hand side. If you flick it up, it turns on this little arrow on the back of your car that lets people behind you know you want to go right. If you flick it down, it does the same thing but for the left. It’s so easy a preschooler could do it (not that I’m advocating for your four-year-old to get behind the wheel).

Now I don’t know if the blinker just magically disappears off a car as soon as it crosses the border into Arizona, but I SWEAR no one actually knows how to use their blinker. Driving is just one big guessing game of “Are they going straight? Oh, just kidding! They just got into the right turn lane. WAIT WHY ARE THEY TURNING LEFT THEY JUST GOT IN THE RIGHT TURN LANE OH MY GOD I’M GOING TO DIE.”

It’s a really fun game, I promise.

RAIN??? WHO IS SHE???!!???!

I understand that we live in a desert and get less than ten inches of rain a year. However, every year during monsoon season we will get rain. This is not a surprise. So why do Arizona drivers suddenly forget how to drive as soon as mother nature starts to cry?

I swear driving in the rain is no different from driving in the sun except you just have your windshield wipers on. Apparently, Arizona drivers vehemently disagree with me.

You have people who are skidding all over the streets. You have people splashing pedestrians walking on the sidewalk on purpose (these assholes deserve a special place in hell). You have people who have their windshield wipers on the highest speed for a few droplets of water. You have people who are watching other people’s windshield wiper speeds to make sure they’re not being too dramatic with their windshield wiper speeds.

It’s such a mess that mother nature is probably crying more just from watching Arizona drivers trying to cope with a little bit of H2O.

SUMMER OF HELL 

A couple summers ago Arizona got so hot that planes were not allowed to land at Phoenix Sky Harbor. Why? They were worried that the heat on the tarmac would melt the tires off the planes.

Like I said before, we Arizonians like to fry eggs on our sidewalks and bake cookies in our cars during summer. But what do we not like? Driving anywhere during summer.

We can’t touch the steering wheel, we can barely sit in our car seats, and we get branded every time we try to buckle our seatbelts. 

I think it’s kind of important to be able to touch the steering wheel while driving but sometimes it just be like that. Trying to get from Point A to Point B during the summer is a constant struggle between “Do I want to accidentally crash my car today?” and “Do I really want third degree burns because the ones from last week have barely healed?”

SNOW BIRDS

You would think we get better at driving during the winter. There’s barely any rain and no one is burning a slow and painful death while trying to drive. Life is good, right? Except during winter, we get this lovely migration of snow birds.

I know what you’re thinking, “Snow birds? In Arizona? You guys don’t even HAVE snow?” First off, we do get snow if you go to northern Arizona. Second off, snow birds are these cute, little, elderly, retired people who can’t drive to save their lives. They all come to Arizona during the winter months to get away from “real winter” (whatever that is). However, I don’t think they realize that along with their suitcases they bring a new level of hell to driving.

Having a bunch of elderly people driving at a snail’s pace in a state where speeds limits are a laughable suggestion…It’s just an accident waiting to happen.

AZ DRIVERS ARE NO BUENO

There are so many more reasons that Arizona drivers are actually the worst. If you don’t believe me, come to Arizona yourself and drive around. Maybe you’ll make it back home alive.