Traffic…

I had another rough drive into work this morning. It started trying to merge onto the highway. Of course there was a truck two vehicles ahead of me on the on ramp. It is always fun to drive 35 mph behind a truck while trying to merge onto the highway where other drivers are doing at least 60 mph. I love how those same drivers do not feel the need to allow other cars to merge. They are not going to get that much farther ahead of me. There is a truck in the way. But no, they have to pull right up behind the car in front of them and make me brake almost to a stop. Then it is a fight to get two lanes over in the next 2 miles before the lane I am in merges into a different highway that I do not want to be on. Eventually I am able to work my way over to the far left lane. This is the passing lane in case anyone forgot. So why every morning do I get stuck behind someone in that lane who never passes anyone? It does not matter if it is a male driver, female driver, old, young, whatever they all do the same thing. People if you drive in the passing lane pass or move over! It is not a difficult concept. I finally manage to work my way around the bottleneck and get to my exit. Smooth sailing right? A long line of traffic is what happens instead. I can live with that though if they would at least drive the speed limit. Along the way there are two intersections where there are three lanes to choose from--a left turn only, straight only, and a right lane that you can go straight or turn. If you go straight you have 500 feet before you have to merge since that lane ends. And every morning there is at least one or two drivers at each intersection that feels they do not have to wait in line like everyone else going straight and they pull into the right land and then try to pass a couple of cars before merging. We are talking only a couple of cars! How does that get them where they are going that much faster? I get past those intersections and things seem to be starting to move at a decent pace now. Until the van in front of me locks up his brakes. I had to hit my brakes quickly to keep from hitting the van which had to pull partially on the shoulder to keep from hitting the car in front of it. I was not sure if the car behind me would be able to stop in time, but it did. The car behind him had to pull completely on to the shoulder and stopped halfway past him to keep from rear ending him. At least the rest of the drive in was uneventful and went smoothly.

What I really do not understand is where is all of this traffic coming from? The area I live in has lost a lot of its population over the last few decades. So if we have less people living here why are there more drivers on the road? And they are on the road at all hours too! The other thing is where is the courtesy anymore? I wonder if this goes back to one of my favorite rants about the lack of community today? People just don’t feel connected to the rest of society anymore. It is all about me me me. Can you tell I had a rough drive in this morning…