Sunday, May 13, 2007
FREELANCE COP
Your overtaking-lane slowhog manifests in three primary forms:
1. The ELDERLY CONFUSENIK. Why are all these people honking at me? I’m driving safely, aren’t I? There’s no sound of rending metal, is there? Why don’t my grandchildren ever call?
2. The PRE-PLANNER. He/she knows the exit they’re aiming for is some miles down the freeway, and they want to be in the lane - the overtaking lane - that will best assist this. Thirty minutes before the exit arrives.
3. The ABSOLUTE WAD WHO BLOCKS OTHER DRIVERS FOR REASONS OF MORAL SUPERIORITY. A decade or so back I found myself trapped - in Melbourne, Australia’s capital of overtaking-lane hoggery - behind a car that wouldn’t move out of the fast lane. Flashing lights caused the idiot driver to violently hit his brakes ... on a three-lane freeway.
So I overtook on the left. As I passed, the fellow pointed angrily at his speedometer; he apparently felt himself to be in the right due to speed-limit observance, regardless of laws requiring drivers to ditch the fast lane unless overtaking. Which brings us to lefty lawyer and ladykiller Jeremy Sear, who is inclined to blockery:
If I’m going at the speed limit emergency services vehicles are the only ones who have any right to be shirty at me for being in their way ... Notwithstanding the rule to keep left, a driver who’s speeding - the only way another driver at the speed limit could be in the way - has no right to be shirty.
Curious, isn’t it, that the people most concerned with rights have so little regard for manners. Florida Cracker has further traffic news.