Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been traveling a lot more on the freeways, as I have joined a gym that is located about 15 miles away from my house. I used to drive around the valley a lot as a service technician. I have forgotten how frustrating it can be to deal with traffic. The direction that I go to the gym actually has less traffic than going the other way, so it’s not like I’m dealing with “Rush Hour” (ever notice that rush hour actually lasts about 3 hours!). What I have noticed is that people can’t seem to keep a consistent speed. The speed limit is 65 M.P.H. and traffic in the fast lane is going from 75 M.P.H to 55 M.P.H …WHY? I look ahead and I can see the one car that is in the fast lane with about a dozen other cars backed up behind them. This driver has decided that they can drive however they want, wherever they want without consideration for others. It doesn’t matter that they are being passed by a constant stream of red faced drivers who, trust me, are not waving “hi.” These same drivers in a situation where a lane is ending and traffic is really heavy, will pull part way into that lane that is ending, in order to keep you from passing them in that lane, even when there is 1000′ till the lane actually ends. I guess that they figure that if they have to wait in a longer line then you should too, however what I think is that they are just too stupid to realize that if they had gotten in that lane they could be ahead of you. If traffic can fill up all the space available for the merge, then at the point at which you HAVE to merge, if everyone will just take their turn and one car from each lane at a time merges, it’s like a zipper, and traffic moves as efficiently as it can in a grid lock.

What all of these annoying practices of these drivers comes down to is a problem that is rampant everywhere…People are selfish and don’t consider others. Next time you are on the road and you see that guy coming up behind you really fast, pull into the lane next to you, and let him go by, even if he is not driving the way you think he should, it is the considerate thing to do.

Jason
Estimator