Archive for February, 2008

On my way home from work there is a long off- ramp/on-ramp that connects two freeways. The ramp only has one lane and at this time of day usually goes slowly with a lot of slow-and-go. Most of the drivers realize that there is nothing you can do to go any faster than any of the other cars on the ramp, cheap so they drive calmly until the lanes open up at the end of the ramp.

Today I was on the ramp and I had about one and a half car-lengths between me and the car ahead of me. When the car ahead slammed on his breaks I let off the gas and coasted up close at which point the car ahead would zoom up again for a few seconds opening up about 2 car-lengths ahead of me. This is normal and happens almost every day on this ramp. I was startled today, though, by a honking car behind me.

I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw a black car about 3 inches from my bumper and far to the right of all of the others behind it. I was a little puzzled but figured that there wasn’t much I could do about it, so I continued on as normal for another couple of minutes as we all progressed at the same rate in our single lane.

Out of nowhere this care passes me on the right, cuts me off, and starts riding the bumper of the car that was in front of me. I have idea what the driver’s problem was. He stayed right there in front of me for another two minutes and drove normally as far as I could tell from that point on. The only thing I can guess is that he was upset because I wasn’t tailgating the car in front of me. I have no idea how that would have made any difference to him considering we still exited the ramp merely seconds from one another. I guess some drivers just can’t stand the sight of open space on the freeway.