Posted on 05/26/2015 9:21:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
So Memorial Day is over. You had a great time with whomever, but let me guess—it was not so great on the highway, when about 100 million others joined you on the asphalt jungle. In just about six weeks, we’ll get to do it again for Independence Day, an apt name for any day on the roadways when the morons amongst us demonstrate just how independent they can be.
My email inbox recently gave me the “Bill of Non-Rights” with stuff like (“You do not have the right to a free house…,” etc.), and so, here’s my stab at a few “New Rules for Some Drivers.”
Preamble
WE the people of the United States built vast ribbons of transportation variously called roads, highways, interstates, or turnpikes. Each of them is designed to move people and their vehicles from place to place efficiently, and accidents with injuries and death are low probabilities as long as each driver demonstrates a modicum of reason, safety, and courtesy while operating their vehicle. Toward that end, each state has devised a manual for operator survival. WE know everyone read it at least once. WE understand, however, that some have discarded these carefully written rules, instituting their own entitlement philosophy instead, simply because they are better than everyone else. For the special “some” of you, the rest of us would like to mention our decreasing tolerance for a few things—besides abusing drugs and alcohol—you may not do while driving:
You may not camp in the left lane, talk on your cell, or text, or engage in other intensely personal activities, slowing while doing so, even if your girlfriend is dumping you for being a self-centered piece of work. She is probably right. Unless you’re going faster than the rest of us (passing?), move over.
In construction zones, you may not pass all those who followed signage instruction to form one lane. Would you crash a bank line? A grocery line? Surprise—we have to get there, too. When a trucker moves to the empty lane, keeping pace with the turtle-like traffic, the rest of us do not honk or swear. Why? We’re glad they keep clowns like you from making the delay so much longer than it needs to be.
You are not entitled to treat the highway as your personal Dodgem ride at an amusement park. That means kissing the bumper in front of you at eighty miles per hour on I-Whatever puts you in the category of stupid, reckless, or crazy. Maybe all three? But remember: if you act like Putin, don’t expect everyone else to act like Obama with a fake red line. For the men who think highways are a high-definition video game, if after threatening everyone else’s very existence, you flip your car during one of these maneuvers, don’t expect cards or flowers.
You are not entitled to stand on your brakes for a turn you knew you were going to make, and then turn on your signal as you make the turn. The exercise you get in flicking the lever will be just as great if you do it as all states require: signal your turn well before you brake.
If your car has Bluetooth, you may not make left turns into heavy traffic while talking to the phone in your left ear, holding a cigarette, shushing your kids, and steering—scaring the living hell out of us. This is not brilliant multi-tasking, ladies (sorry, it’s nearly always you). Get connected!
Are there other “New Rules” I didn’t mention? Have I touched a nerve with the self-important practitioners of stress, injury, and death? I hope so. The rest of us want the next driving jaunt to be much more pleasant, with or without you.
You are quite incorrect with that statement. I see that exact scenario every day driving to work here in CA.
I feel that way for people that cruise in the far left lane for no reason and don’t use turn signals.
Well, maybe not burn in hell, but they should have their license permanently revoked and their cars sold at auction and maybe a few years in prison.
When a pedestrian, I always try to make eye contact with approaching cars. The message I try to deliver with my eyes?
“Keep coming, and I will make the biggest dent I can in the middle of your hood.”
Zipper merge is the right answer, not immediately diving into the through lane.
See post 22, Sam.
Better than being between two constantly converging metal masses? Absolutely!
Left turn threats are no different than the myriad of other life threatening scenarios a motorcyclist faces (and most drivers never recognize) every moment out on the road. Most successful riders are able to recognize the threats early and have a strategy to deal with them. It’s certainly not for everyone.
If a rider has chosen to drink then ride, then they deserve to become a statistic.
Zipper merge and alternate merge are the same thing. But if you “zip” it too soon, you WILL be passed by one or more of the @hole$ who absolutely MUST get ahead of you.
“Better than being between two constantly converging metal masses? Absolutely!”
With only a few feet between my LF bumper and the other car’s RR bumper, bikers always seem to want to squeeze through to change lanes to put themselves in a spot that is less than two carlengths long, only to repeat that up ahead with a change back to the left lane.
Very few courteous bikers left on the road anymore. I rode for three years in California and never found the desire nor need to whiteline ‘for safety’s sake’.
“Zipper merge”
What is it when you half-merge so the ahole can’t get by?
Stuck zipper?
“For a motorcyclist, the most dangerous time in traffic is being between two vehicles. By placing themselves to the side or lane splitting, ...”
... they are putting themselves in traffic between two vehicles with no room to maneuver.
Sounds like a setting for disaster!
Yes, I guess the zipper merge makes sense if performed properly - that is the key. So for example with a two lane going to a single lane, the best way is for both lanes of traffic to converge at the point of merger and then take turns going through the bottleneck. One car from the right lane goes and then one car from the left lane goes, and so on. Problem is, most people don’t know to do that and the people in the right lane feel that those in the left lane “cheated” and deserve to wait longer.
Those words in that combination bring a term to mind: OUCH!
And of course, that's why motorcyclists do it. Good point. I should have recognized that.
But...wait. If that were the case, why wouldn't they sit between two vehicles and wait for traffic to move? They don't. They zoom up through two lanes to the head of the line to be the first one to jack rabbit off the line at the stop light and beat all that traffic and all that tedious waiting.
So your comments about safety may apply to you but not to the 99% of lane splitters who do it and aren't interested in safety at all. And some at excessive speed. They are interested in getting to point B ahead of everyone else.
I will admit my comment about the door thing was out of line. But every 4 wheeler has thought about it at one time or another.
One additional observation...that 99% is 99.99999% Japanese rice burning crotch rockets. Super bikes as they call them. I have spent a load of time driving over the years and rarely do I see a Harley or an Indian lane splitting. Now, granted, it may be due to their size but a Harley 900 Electra Glide could fit easily.
Or does it have more to do with the psyche or personality of the rider?
</rant>
The zipper merge, at the point where the one lane disappears, is the most efficient way to do it. Certainly more efficient than some people jumping in before the back up starts, some merging in part-way through the line up, and others driving right to the end, where everyone else will think they are jerks.
Portcall24 is right. Traffic engineers agree that using the zipper approach in moving from 2 lanes to one is the correct and expedient way to keep traffic moving and flowing.
These people are not cutting in line.
Skiers know this "rule" as it's often the case where the line requires a merge, it's always alternate.
LOL
I realized my lucky hand wasn’t going to last forever. Sooner or later gonna get dealt a loser.
The same reasoning led me to quit smoking 7 years ago. After smoking for 50 years and having no lung, heart or throat problems, I figured I was really, really pushing my luck.
That’s different in a culture that has cartwheeling fits over gun-shaped pop tarts...Funny how that works, isn’t it?
I still ride and I’m a great grandpa many times over. But I trust no one on the road, except to do what will get me killed if I don’t have an out. Serious defensive driving. When I can’t see, hear, or drive well enough to make sure they miss me, it’s time to drop the kickstand for the last time.
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