Stuff I Think About: Minivans

I HATE minivans. There. I said and mean it.

Have you ever been stuck in traffic, found yourself surrounded by minivans and started wondering (a) Why anyone would buy a minivan on purpose (b) Why anyone who'd intentionally buy a minivan is allowed to drive on public streets (c) Is there something creepy about me or my car that makes me a moving minivan magnet? (d) Do minivans have gas pedals?

I'm saying I've seen minivans parked on dealer display floors moving faster than some of the minivan drivers that herd around me in traffic like cows at the feed trough.

And I'm only calling them "drivers" because I don't know the word they call the guys who ride along on garbage scows heading out to sea.

Maybe every minivan ever manufactured came straight from the factory with a defective speedometer that reads 3x faster than the van's actually moving. Which explains why doing 15 in a 45 mph zone seems to press most minivan drivers' nerves (and skills) to extreme limits.

Do minivans come with brakes, or just a big SLOW/SLOWER handle on the dash? I've read that minivans, with their higher center of gravity, are more likely to roll over and take longer to stop than a passenger sedan. So maybe minivan drivers think they're being careful by avoiding sudden manuevers like lane changes.

But the way minivan drivers slow down to snail-speed to make turns makes me think a fully-loaded garbage truck could take the turn faster, and not lose a single fly.

I also loathe getting behind minivans at fast food drive-throughs, because there must be a law somewhere that says minivans are only permitted to enter drive-throughs when carrying at least 12 passengers. The second part of the law says that no passenger in a minivan is allowed to know what they want to order before the minivan pulls up and stops at the the ordering window.

The third part of the law says that each passenger must then ask for their meal to be individually cooked to order; the fourth part of the law requires that each passenger in a minivan must pay for their order separately, and only with the correct change, which must be kept securely stowed in console boxes, between seat cushions, and under floor mats.

I also wonder if minivan owners get factory rebates for plastering silly bumperstickers all over their tailgates. Or maybe it's a secret club among minivan owners, to see who can come up with the silliest-sounding slogans to annoy drivers behind them.

Cutsie minivan bumperstickers are especially distracting because when I'm stuck in a passing zone behind a minivan rocketing along at 40 miles an hour under the speed limit, it pays to watch closely and avoid guessing whether the guy behind the wheel already knows he's fallen asleep.

Some of the bumperstickers I especially despise include:

Honk If You Love Fruit Cake!
Hand Puppets Are People, Too!
My Kid Only Looks Like A Geek!
My Church Is Glad All Sinners Are Going To Hell!

My idea of a nightmare is being stuck behind the same minivan on I-85 all the way from Atlanta to Anderson, then see its turn signal flicker on at my exit, tag along behind till it crawls to the nearest drive-through, and then notice a bumpersticker that reads

My Other Car Is Also A Minivan