Drivers
When I drive to and from work, my mind often wanders. I like to think of it as day dreaming but it’s probably ADD. Either way, I pass my time by listening to talk radio and talking to myself. Sometimes I talk on the phone but for the most part hate talking on a cell phone, especially in the car, and would rather wait until I am in front of a land line. When anyone drives in traffic, there are a few different behaviors that I always find interesting. I often wonder what the person is like who drives a certain way. I tried to categorize some of the things people do and took a guess at what they are like in person.
1 – Laggers. I hate this behavior. Hate it. When I am in the car it is usually in heavy traffic. Vehicles move anywhere from a stand still to 30 miles an hour. A lagger is someone who always keeps at least a 3 or 4 car-length distance between themselves and the car in front of them. 99% of drivers in traffic, because it’s moving so slow, are pretty close to the car in front of them, let’s guess it at one to ½ a car length. The lagger is someone who almost never gets anywhere near that close. When traffic is moving and there is this huge gap, the lagger will slam on their brakes when they see the brake light go on from the car in front of them, even though they have a huge amount of cushion. This drives me nuts. I sit behind this type of driver and watch car after car after car get in front of this person while our lane continues to make less progress as other lanes. It drives me nuts.
I can picture the type of person. Walks slow in the mall or at an airport so others have a hard time getting by them. Window shops and often looks like they are trying to peer out from under their glasses at something that is eye level. Takes their time in line at a store, doesn’t get their cash or credit card out until the cashier tells them the total. Hugely risk adverse. Waits for the crosswalk to tell them when to go. Life is a little boring and slow. No rush to get anywhere because probably not much waiting for them. Low to mid level local government job in accounting or book keeping.
2 – No turn signal. This is a fairly common driver, especially in Massachusetts. In fact...
2 – No turn signal. This is a fairly common driver, especially in Massachusetts. In fact, drivers ed in this state never touches on these silly sticks coming out of the steering column called “turn signals”. This driver cuts from lane to lane, gets into the off or onramp, makes right turns at intersections, and the turn arrow is never a thought. Most of the time this doesn’t bother me except when it impedes on what I am doing. If I am driving along at whatever speed I want and someone in front of me moves lanes without a turn signal, who cares, no harm done to me. But when I am waiting to make a right hand turn and there is a car coming from the left, and I wait and wait and the car slows down and makes the right onto the street I am on, I get annoyed. I could have gone if I knew they were turning.
This person is easier to peg than most. Arrogant, self-important condescending jerk. This is the type of person who walks right up to the security checkpoint even though there is a huge line and sneaks his way into the line. This person enters a coffee shop that doesn’t have a good queue system and goes right to the next available order-taker. This person smokes cigars on a busy sidewalk, this person sneezes really really loud without covering their nose, this person is an all around a-hole. After all, if they have no consideration to tell other drivers what they are doing, why would their non-driving life be any different? I was at a really charged NBA playoff game once and their was this guy in one of the first rows behind the bench. Every time the home team did something good, the crowd would go wild and this guy would turn around, face the crowd, and lift his arms into a giant ‘Y’ like he was the pope blessing the crowd. In his mind he was imploring the crowd to cheer and we were all abiding by his command. THAT guy doesn’t use his turn signal. This type of driver complains to a bartender that their isn’t enough scotch in his drink, yells at a waitress for getting one minor thing wrong with is order, and makes a lot of noise in a movie theater. I hate this type of person more than anyone else because this person is often a bully. I hate bullies.
3 – Dead stop lane change.
This one is usually because of poor driving habits and lack of experience or confidence, or both. Let me describe the situation. I am in medium traffic and all three lanes are going between 5 and 30 miles an hour. I am in the far left lane. Traffic in all lanes starts to slow down to about 5 miles an hour. The car in front of me puts on their turn signal and stops to get into the middle lane, which is fine because all traffic has pretty much stopped. Traffic in my lanes starts to move faster than the other two. MOST drivers would forget getting over and keep the flow of traffic moving. The dead stop lane changer stays where they are. The middle lane has not moved yet so they cannot get over, but our lane is moving fine. So I sit there, behind this person who is trying to get over, while the middle lane does not move and the car in front of the dead stop car gets farther and farther away. To make it worse, cars from the middle lane start getting over into the my lane because they see that 1) it is moving and 2) there is this huge and expanding gap.
This person is hard to define. At times I think it is someone who is new to driving but not young. Young drivers are aggressive and will keep up with the fast lane. This driver might be from another country where driving in cars is not something they grew up doing. This type of behavior is indicative of someone who is not used to the customs of driving. This could also be an older or timid driver who is nervous about not finding an opportunity to change lanes during heavy traffic and for some reason has gotten the approval from someone while traffic was at a stand still and doesn’t want to lose their chance. There is also a valid reason for this, such as an off ramp coming up that the person has to use. This doesn’t bother me as much because I have learned to be much more forgiving in traffic because it’s not a race and who cares if I get stuck an extra minute or two.
4 – Lookers.
This is often done on a road with a lot of lights. It is when a driver comes to a stand still and looks to the left and right to see who is in the cars around him. What I find interesting is when someone on the highway does this. When it is done on a road with lights it’s usually some young guy or group of young guys looking for chicks or someone to start a fight with. But during rush hour, on the highway, drivers are usually going to and from work, with no other objective than that. They are usually not trying to find a date or anything. So this baffles me a little.
The type of driver is exactly how I describe. Young, usually male, not real attractive or much to offer otherwise they wouldn’t be looking to meet girls while in separate cars. It’s usually in some piece of crap old beat up muscle car that is past its point of impressing people.
Car pool.
There is something else I find interesting. There has never been any kind of effort to get people to car pool. Nothing significant at least. When you look at rush hour traffic at the macro level, it’s about people from outlying communities funneling into a few roads to get to a city. Simple. And there has to be a lot of people from each community who travel to work at roughly the same time. But when you look at almost all the cars on the road in the morning and afternoon, there is almost always one person. And they are not these tiny cars either, it’s a lot of wasted space in SUVs and trucks and mini vans and sedans. I am guilty since I have a large pick-up truck. But it amazes me that there has never been a culture of leaving three cars in the community and maximizing the space inside one car, thus reducing the amount of cars on the road. I assume the problem is that people like the freedom of their own car, just like I do, and that a lot of people like being alone in the car, like I do. With other people you have to share the radio, reduce the amount of time you talk on the phone, and make small talk. Three things that would deter me from car pooling.
Anyway, spending time in traffic is not so bad. For the most part I leave enough time so I am not in a huge rush, I enjoy the solitude, and I learn to be patient with bad people because there is absolutely nothing good that will come of being upset and yelling and beeping your horn. And I spend time thinking about stupid stuff like this, which I write about later in the day.