The Iggblog

Traffic!!!

Hmm… what is it about traffic that is so infuriating? Most people know me as a pretty stable guy. I don’t often appear upset even when I am, and I never raise my voice. Usually if I have something to say, it’s calm and well thought out. Traffic is the only exception to this. I can often be found yelling obscenities at or near the top of my lungs at the “parade of morons” or “flock of fucking idiots” in front of me. If you’ve observed me getting angry in traffic, you’ve only seen a fraction of how I get when I’m alone. I reflexively tone it down when I have company. And no… I’m never tempted to get out of my car and “do something about it”, because that is just about the most shortsighted thing anyone could do when road rage sets in. I might wish them dead by some sort of divine intervention, but I retain my higher functions with respect to my own actions when I’m “all fired up”.

To the best of my reasoning ability, it seems to me that it’s people playing down the importance of traffic. The rules are simple. Mind-fucking-buggeringly simple. There is no rulebook, there’s a rule pamphlet which outlines right of way and rules of the road. IT’S NOT COMPLICATED. Right of way laws are so insanely simple and intuitive that there really shouldn’t even need to be a rulebook for them in the first place. Basically if you take a positive action (changing lanes, merging, entering a rotary, turning) which causes someone maintaining a steady path to significantly deviate from it, you are probably violating their right of way. There are exceptions of course, but generally speaking. Basically, exercise “common courtesy”. Click >>here<< for an explanation of courtesy, since it's probably news to you. There are links on the page if this concept intrigues you and you want to read up more on it. Don't forget to tell your friends! For example: if you have been waiting to turn into traffic for a while and no holes are opening up, you are not accruing "right of way points" that let you barge into traffic just by virtue of your having been inconvenienced at the stop. You fucking wait until you have an opening! Nobody else on the road is required to care how long you've been waiting there! Same thing if you've been riding the passing lane and your exit is coming up... Just because there is no clear opening between the semitrucks to your right doesn't mean you dash across traffic with reckless abandon to get to your exit. It's your problem for planning poorly in the first place, nobody else in traffic gives a damn or is required to give a damn where you are going or how you plan to get there. If you miss your exit, you go to the next one and turn around. Believe it or not, there are those of us who do this instead of risking dozens of lives to save a handfull of minutes. For the love of all that is holy, the left lane is the passing lane not a travel lane. You pass and get back in the right lane. Nobody cares if you don't like changing lanes frequently. That's how traffic works. If you don't like it, write your senator or some shit. Don't take liberties with everyone else's right of way. And don't get me fucking started on turning signals. Few things show as much carelessness as not letting everyone else on the road know what you're planning to do. How the HELL can you participate in traffic and not use your turning signals. They should be much more active on ticketing for failure to do this. I've seen far more near-accidents from failure to signal intent than from speeding. I guess the thing is that nowhere in life do I observe more carelessness or lack of respect for the well-being of others than on the highway. People get in their cars and drive "their way" following what rules they see fit when they see fit, completely oblivious to how it relates to anyone else on the road. What is beside or behind them is not relevent. It pisses me off because while you are in traffic you have the ability to KILL others with mere carelessness, whereas in other areas of daily activity you can only really annoy. You're driving a weapon, and acting like a complete braindead fucking idiot on the road is deadly. I saved my life 4 times on the road today. In each case I was driving in the center lane at a steady velocity, traveling the speed of traffic. I had to take drastic corrective actions to avoid being hit by people. Not because they were avoiding something, but because they were not paying attention to their surroundings and were ignoring the rules of the road… just drifting in and out of lanes like the king/queen of the damn road. Although I had more near misses today than normal, being confronted with deadly situations at the hands of the careless public on the road is not anomalous. This, I suppose, is why get so angry sometimes in traffic. Don’t tell me to curb my wrath till everyone else on the road stops treating traffic like an amusement park ride. Start ticketing for something other than speeding, because dammit that’s not the fucking problem. Sorry for the length, but not for the language.