So you’re sitting comfortably in your bright yellow ‘67 Chevy surrounded by well used Coke cans and a Le Big Mac or three, when the psychedelic flashing of the red, yellow and green lights of the traffic signal looming before you interrupts your internal ecstasy. What to do? Stop? Go? Slow? Speed? All-together-simultaneously, perhaps?

Now, see, I fully grasp the intricacies of how mind-numbingly difficult it is to operate the ominous looking pedals located below your steering wheel, and to make matters even more confuddled, you have to deal with remembering what each of those horribly flashing lights mean. It’s all terribly confusing, I completely agree. In the interest of public insanity, I’ve kindheartedly listed the function of each for your reference. Do me a favor, put down the Quarter Pounder with Cheese while you’re reading – I wouldn’t want to strain your multi-tasking molecules. Ready? Er. Go!

Red Light: In most civilized societies, this bothersome light is located at the very top of the traffic signal. Don’t strain your neck looking. Okay, just for clarification, here’s a quick tip for the things you should NOT do when you see a red light.

• Do Not speed up. Duh.

• Do Not slow down.

• Do Not flip the bird to your neighbor while lewdly gesturing with the remnants of your White Castle corpse.

• Do not fall asleep at the red light with dill pickles in your mouth.

Very simply, the Red Light means to S-T-O-P. It’s a difficult concept to grasp, I know. Just keep your 60’s sandal-covered toe mashed on the grease-covered pedal usually located to the left of your steering wheeling and you should be fine. Got it? Spectaculous. Moving on…

Yellow Light: Generally located in the middle. Or, one down from the top light as well as one up from the middle light. Confused? Oops. Again, in the interest of public safety, here’s the proper procedure for yellow lights:

1: Open your window and discard the remnants of your neon green fountain soda, taking care to avoid other drivers, pedestrians, police officers and/or stray poodles.

2: Rest the cheeseburger between your legs for easy access after you’re done concentrating on the monumental task at hand.

3: Here’s the hard part. Take your right foot (know which one that is, right?) OFF the gas pedal and gently, gently, gently slow your car down to a crawl.

See? Now that was’t so bad, was it? You can feel free to rescue the forlorn-looking fast food from between your legs now and commence chompulating.

Green Light: Oh, happy day! Here’s the easiest, most funnest (it is a word – I made it myself) part of this whole ordeal. Green means GO! That does not mean to mash your big toe down on the accelerator, killing your burger and/or passengers in the process. It just simply means to gently rest your foot upon the aforementioned pedal and apply gentle pressure until the appropriate velocity is achieved.

This completes your refresher course on Traffic Signal Etiquette for the Hopelessly Clueless. Congratulations, dude. Have a gnarly day.

Tags: Annoying people, Cars, Driving, Etiquette, Irritating people, Littering, Multitasking Drivers