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There are all varieties of wild drivers; can you name some?
Travel on interstate highways turns up a list of typical offenders
Date published: 8/3/2008
I HAVE a healthy dose of respect for the many folks who get up and fight the Interstate 95 commute every morning.
More and more, I avoid that wretched strip of asphalt, taking back roads and more circuitous routes whenever possible.
But summer usually brings vacation travel and other trips that make total avoidance impossible.
All too quickly, I'm smack dab in the middle of maneuvering that's fraught with peril.
What's causing it all?
On recent trips, it wasn't hard to sort problem drivers into a few categories.
They're a pretty small percentage of all drivers, but they exist in large enough numbers to to make things difficult and dangerous.
The categories:
GOTTA-FLY GUYS
Not far from Williamsburg, an SUV driver intent on doing 90 mph changed lanes so quickly and often in attempts to fly by me that I was afraid to watch.
The driver, incensed because traffic was moving near the speed limit, began tailgating several of us in the pursuit of open road.
Unsuccessful, the driver lost it and pulled partway onto the shoulder to get by a compact car.
I'm sure all the other drivers nearby joined me in a sigh of relief to have this nut moving on down the road.
MIDDLE-LANE MOES
Although fast and frantic drivers are the most dangerous, others dragging along cause problems, too.
On recent trips, I noticed again and again drivers who got into the middle lane and never left it, come congestion or high water.
I understand the appeal of that middle lane, avoiding the right lane, where slow vehicles and merging traffic can put a hitch in your get-a-long.
But one of the key principles of traffic on multiple-lane highways is that slower traffic moves to the right.
Yes, we all should obey the speed limits.
But more often than not, the Middle-Lane Moes I spotted were blocking the safe flow of traffic.
They had chance after chance to slip into an open right lane, allowing people intent on traveling faster to move by.
Date published: 8/3/2008
Most recent reader comments:
They should only allow driving in the two left lanes. Unless you are entering or exiting the highway.
Happens every day in Spotsy
(posted by
imready
, Aug. 3, 2008 11:04 am)
I was on Rte 3 in bumper to bumper traffic basically stopped. I left room for a car in the crossover to get across the highway. Person to next to me did the same. But the person behind me was enraged. Blowing the horn, shooting the finger, this a'hole came around on the shoulder and blocked the crossover and the person trying to get off Rte 3. We would be better off letting illegals into Spotsy than idiots from No VA. Part of the freefall of American values being imported south.
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