Driving pet peeves

I drive approximately 80 to 100 miles a day through the week, depending on if I have school that evening or not. Luckily, my husband and I can carpool three of these days, so we aren't running two cars every day. Most of these miles are on the highway and interstate and I just have to get a few pet peeves out of my system. I am by no means a perfect driver, and probably do things that make other people angry, but this is my blog and they can get their own. So, here goes...

First and foremost: Folks who don't know how to merge or exit on or off of a freeway. The rule is that when merging onto a freeway, you should be up to the posted minimum speed limit BEFORE you merge. Now, I realize that there are a few interchanges that will not allow this (Brown Deer and Interstate 43 for example), and the people who designed those interchanges should be made to drive them in circles 8 hours a day for punishment. But, for the most part, if you have a long, straight and especially downhill shot onto the freeway there's no reason why you can't be going at least 45mph to 55mph when you merge. According to the Wisconsin Motorist Handbook, the person merging onto the freeway must yield to the traffic on the freeway. They should judge their speed and distance so as to merge when they can without slowing down. I cannot tell you how many times I have experienced the my-head-is-locked-in-the-forward-position-and-I'm-only-going-to-go-30mph-and-just-move-over-when-I-get-damn-good-and-ready maneuver. This then causes the entire right lane of traffic to have to slow down, slam on their brakes and wait for the ignorant/apathetic yahoo to grace us with acceleration when he/she finally decides it is time to put their foot down.

This also happens in reverse where Mr. or Ms. Oblivious actually slows down or coasts along in the right lane BEFORE they get to the exit ramp. Exit ramps are long enough that you don't have to slow down on the freeway. This too causes the whole right lane to brake and crawl up on each other because they can't see anyone exiting and they then wing over into the left lane, sometimes without checking a blind spot and nearly colliding with the person who is still going freeway speed or beyond in that left lane.

Second: Making right turns from the center lane. I understand why a semi has to do this. But Mr. Big Ego in his giant SUV doesn't need to do this. Just because you think your vehicle is as big as a semi does not actually mean that it is. Stop compensating and drive like you are supposed to. You do not need the "WIDE RIGHT TURN" sign on your back-end. If you cannot make right turns with your SUV from the right turn lane, you should be required to get a CDL license.

Third: How about some turn signals? I can't read your mind anymore than you can read mine. Just because you waver back and forth in your lane doesn't mean I can correctly interpret that as you want to get into my lane. Along with that, how about checking your blind spot before you flip over into my lane?

Fourth: STOP THE SCAMMING!!! Want to know why everyone is so angry when they drive? It's because of the scammers. You know who you are. The ones who drive in a lane that's going to close until the barrels cut them off and then hurl their car into the open lane at the last second. They know full well that the normal and courteous person will have to slam on their brakes to let them in because they don't want their car smashed into. These devil-may-care-losers do this in the construction zones every day. This also ties in with the scammers who will not merge out of lanes that end normally and keep driving until they are in the distress lanes and then just shove in and make everyone else stop for them. Their time is WAY more important than yours, and you just better be grateful they even let you drive on the same freeway when they are on the road. I'm specifically referring to the stretch of freeway at I43 and Silver Spring. It goes from three lanes to two lanes and everyone knows it for miles. Why some folks feel the need to keep driving in the lane that ends and then just wing over is beyond me. And they wonder why other drivers honk their horn and flash greeting symbols with their hands at them. "Gee, what did I do???"

There are more irritations of course, but I can just feel my blood pressure rising while I type this. I in no way advocate road rage, road revenge or any of the petty one-up-manships that plague our roads. I have often backed off and let things just slide when I really wanted to make them pay somehow. I have yet to figure out why, when we get into cars, our personality changes and we lose common sense and rationality. The case of road rage in Waukesha this week had a guy slamming into an innocent woman because he thought it was his father driving is, unfortunately, not an isolated case. There are countless examples of road rage that happen everyday, although most don't escalate into something as severe as that.

I wish I had an answer. I also wish that there were less scammers in the world too. And finally, I wish I could win the lottery so that I could hire a chauffeur so I wouldn't have to deal with driving ever again.


Blog for the week of May 5th