The Other Traffic Extreme

Everyone, well, every one of you leadfoots out there anyway, hate it when people drive less than 120 miles an hour in the fast lane. I get that. The fast lane is for the passers, so you ought to let them pass. But there's an opposite side of that coin too: don't race in the curb, slow, lane.

As I drive a lot for my job I do try to stay out of the fast lane unless passing, and these days I will stomp onto the accelerator when so doing, getting back to the right once beyond the obstructing vehicle. Yet there are those numbskulls who want to ride my tailgate in the right lane.

Look, dude, if I'm already five miles over the posted speeds in the slow lane and you can get around me, and you almost always can, then get the Hell around me. You shouldn't tailgate me anyways, but if you do it in the slow lane my foot is coming off the gas, buddy. I've slowed down as far as 35 in those cases. Even if I'm impeding you, because of course you have somewhere critical to get to I'm sure, then you're going to rear end me at as slow a pace as I can force upon the situation.

So, drivers, you wanna speed? Be in the left lane. If you're in the right lane speeding you're the dangerous driver, not me.

Rant. Over.

A Patrick Joke

I'm not a speed demon (well, not much of one) but it does bug me when people don't do the speed limit.

Driving along Canfield Avenue in Detroit yesterday with me Mom and me brother Patrick in the van, I was irritated at the two vehicles in the front of me going 15 in a 25 zone. "Oh come on, folks. The speed limit isn't 15 here!" I complained out loud.

"Then why are you doing it?" Patrick responded from the back seat.

I laughed out loud. Well done, brother, although I still think the cars in front if me could have gotten a move on.

Speeding Cloyce

A good friend of mine for many years, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, has always been a speedster. When he drove (I think he's amended his ways somewhat, recently) he really put the pedal to the metal. Though thankfully he's never gotten there, he has driven like Hell.

I'm not sure why he speeds like he does, but it's clearly become enough of a habit that he doesn't seem to notice anything else around him as he drives. He certainly missed the cop the most recent time he was pulled over.

"Do you know why I stopped you, sir?" The officer asked.

Cloyce despondently answered, "Yeah. I was speeding."

The patrolman continued, "Do you realize how fast you were going?"

"No," my friend replied honestly.

"Let me put it this way," the officer explained, "I was right behind another car to pull him over for speeding. I had my lights on and everything. Then you flew by us so fast that I dropped off that car to pursue you." Yep. Cloyce sped faster past a cop car and another vehicle speeding slower than he was without seeing them. Even with the police car's flashing lights on.

I think ol' Cloyce has learned a lesson. Maybe.

Leadfoot Cloyce

A good friend of mine for many years, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, has always been a speedster. When he drove (I think he's amended his ways somewhat, recently) he really put the pedal to the metal. Though thankfully he's never gotten there, he has driven like Hell.

I'm not sure why he speeds like he does, but it's clearly become enough of a habit that he doesn't seem to notice anything else around him as he drives. He certainly missed the cop the most recent time he was pulled over.

"Do you know why I stopped you, sir?" The officer asked.

Cloyce despondently answered, "Yeah. I was speeding."

The patrolman continued, "Do you realize how fast you were going?"

"No," my friend replied honestly.

"Let me put it this way," the officer explained, "I was right behind another car to pull him over for speeding. I had my lights on and everything. Then you flew by us so fast that I dropped off that car to pursue you." Yep. Cloyce sped faster past a cop car and another vehicle speeding slower than he was without seeing them. Even with the police car's flashing lights on.

I think ol' Cloyce has learned a lesson. Maybe.

Tearin' up jack

I remember Amos. He was one of Grandpa Joe's best friends, and lived just up the street. Often he would walk down to visit Joe and if one of us kids were out, he'd stop to shake our hand and say hi. I always thought that was pretty cool of him.
He had a phrase for when he was going some place in a hurry. He'd say he was "tearin' up jack". One day his tearin up jack cost him an extra ten minutes.
Amos was coming down the Lodge Freeway here in Detroit, hurrying to get home. Now, I don't know if other parts of these United States have such things, but on Detroit freeways many exits have turn around lanes at the top of the ramps which allowed you to make a U-turn without making a left turn onto the street where you exited. Maybe you wanted the street a couple blocks back, say, so this way you could loop around to it without making two left turns. It was thought to help traffic flow, I've always guessed.
But anyway, there was often an entrance to the freeway on the far service drive after the turnaround lane. If the street merited an exit it merited an entrance too, right? In this case, Amos was exiting at Forest Avenue but wanted to double back to Warren, which was two streets north. So he intended to take the turnaround lane at Forest and double back to Warren.
"Here I am headin' south on the Lodge tearin' up jack', Amos explained, "And I fly up the ramp and take the turnaround tearin' up jack, and I get on the far service drive and run right down the entrance ramp onto the northbound Lodge." Yep. In his hurry to get home, Amos had become for an instant absent minded and tore up jack right back onto the freeway.
That's the peril of tearin' up jack. You can forget where you're supposed to go.

Cosmic traffic justice

I'm not a speed demon by any stretch of the imagination. But I do find myself driving faster than I once did. At one time I kept strictly to the posted limits. Now I crease the envelope a bit. When you drive a lot for your job I suppose it's natural to be in more of a hurry. I'm not justifying it, only explaining it.

Just the same, I have come to resent when folks pass me when I'm already speeding. Really? I'm going too fast myself towards a destination where arrival time isn't actually an issue but you're going somewhere so much more important that you still need to get past me? Maybe it's a passive type of road rage but still, it irritates. That's why what happened yesterday made me all happy inside.

I was motoring along a street almost 10 miles per hour over the speed limit. Yet for this nimrod coming up behind me that wasn't fast enough. He had to pass me. On the right, in the parking lane. He's not only passing me but doing something doubly illegal. I mildly mentally cursed his impertinence but was ready to let it go.

And I did let that feeling go. But I smiled openly when the next four traffic lights caught him, and I caught up to him each time. So you had to pass me, did ya? But now you ain't getting where you're going any more quickly, are ya?

I felt that a certain justice had been done. Cosmic traffic justice, if you will. And I am far too pleased with my attitude towards it.