Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Traffic Makes Poeple Crazy

I'm sure somewhere someone is doing a very expensive, time consuming study about this. And yes we have all heard about road rage.

Let me save you both time and money and give you the answer. Waiting in traffic makes people crazy!

They get mad, impatient and forget their manners. They yell, curse and flip off strangers. Cut in line, block intersections, drive on the shoulder, cut corners and just in general make it dangerous for others.

Am I guilty of some, if not all, of these? YES!

I sit in a lot of traffic and mostly, though, I am patient. My occasional yelling or impatience is at the idiot that I mentioned above.

Tonight, for example, we were sitting in a lot of traffic to only go a few miles at best. As soon as we were free, some one made the mistake of deciding to turn right.... the horror! The more important person in the car behind them decided they wanted to go in around instead of waiting the 1-2 seconds it would take for the person to turn. Problem was I was in the lane next to them. I honked, the VIP stayed in her lane.

I don't remember driving always being like this. I feel like I am driving into warfare or something. I have to be both offensive and defensive at the same time with my driving.

What I hate the most in the whole wide world is when a driver knows the lane ends, you have to merge, the continuing lane backs up, as drivers will go all the way to the end of the lane before getting over and basically "cut" in. What is worse is when they will continue on the shoulder until they can get in. I will let one car in. One car! That's all I "have" to let in. One car is polite! And yes sometimes I will let 2 in, but that is my limit! Why should I let 2, 3, 4 people over just so I have to sit there that much longer. What if every car in front of me let 2+ cars in line? That is why the line is sooo long in the first place! Duh!

Anyway, just had to vent since I almost got sideswapped tonight! (actually writing this on Monday but posting on Wednesday!)

4 comments:

lincldad said...

I feel your pain. 1 car is the limit, and everyone should let 1 car over. I hate the buttheads that don't let any. I also hate that 1 car that just wanted to get ahead insted of merging well before they had to.
I used to sit for 2 hrs a day in I-10 traffic. The "road rage" seemed to get less and less the longer I did it though.

Avonlea said...

Yes, traffic does make people crazy. We made the mistake of trying to go out last Friday night to dinner at a friend's house. No matter which way we drove, we had to go by mall and store traffic. It took us an hour to go less than 2 or 3 miles!!

BTW, hope ya'll have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, too!

Anonymous said...

OMG...ok, this is totally bursting my little bubble that only the DC area has maniac drivers and that outside of NYC and LA, everyone else is fine!

Scary, scary story my friend. I freely admit that it's just for this reason that I take mass transit as much as I possibly can. I'm fortunate that the DC area has an excellent mass transit system, so you really can get around quite well. But when I do have to drive...I am scared.

Stay safe out there! I am glad you are OK. And Merry Christmas to you!

KimboSue said...

Found you via Pearland Chron blog...

I am assuming this near miss incident was on the lovely 518? UGH! I can't wait until the feeders are complete and one of those Ranch Roads' (from 518 to McHard) expansion is done!