Thursday, September 15, 2005

Who's Gonna Drive You Home, Tonight?

6pm. Rush hour, people are jockeying for position, buses are stopping traffic at corners to pick up and drop off people and cars are jutting in and out of lanes. Does this sound familiar? Well, here is my opinion on rush hour. JUST DRIVE PEOPLE!! We go through these issues five days a week and everyday it’s the same thing.

Why, oh why, don’t you have a routine of getting into the lane where you’ll do the core of your driving and stay there!

I drive the same way home everyday. I exit my parking lot to the right, turning into the middle lane, driving about 2 miles before I reach a large intersection where cars are always turning right and I can move into the right lane because the middle lane turns into a left turn only lane. I know this because I drive this way everyday! I then stay in this lane for four more miles before I have to turn left. You see, it’s pretty easy for me to do this routine on a daily basis.

The problem, however, is when all the other people driving around me fuck this routine up! People are zipping in and out of lanes, figuring out they’re in that left turn only lane when they need to go straight and all of a sudden they try to cut in front of me! Or they cut in front of me at other times. I don’t mean they enter my lane because there is room, I mean they are cutting me off, no signals flash and no wave for not bumping their ass as they slice in between cars.

While I’m speaking of cutting in; just because there is some room between myself and the car in front of me, does not mean that you should make a right on red into that space! Space does not equal time. If there are a few car lengths between 2 cars, it is because tailgating is not a good practice when driving! It doesn’t mean you should attempt to jump out in front of me and slam on the gas. Obviously since you’re picking this space to try to enter traffic, you are not a NASCAR driver! You need to take at least 8 seconds to make a right turn and get up to the speed and flow of traffic as to not disrupt my flow in traffic!

With gas being the price per gallon that it is right now, I don’t want to be in stop and go traffic for 25 minutes on my way home and I’ll bet a lot of other people feel the same way.

Fortunately for other drivers, even though I am quickly losing patience, I know that in less than 30 minutes, I’ll be home and you won’t because you’ll be jutting in and out of lanes instead of driving straight to your destination.

Ok, so here’s the plan: pick a lane, don’t cut me off and don’t jump out in front of me.

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