The land that freeway merging forgot
I consider my hometown a good place to live.
Today’s story is my lament over one thing that makes it a not-so-great place.
Many people in this midwestern community- way too many people- suck at merging onto the freeway.
And while this is what many would perhaps consider trivial, it nonetheless is ‘postworthy.’
Let me describe the behavior. It’s really quite simple.
Drivers come onto the freeway at, oh, 35 or 40 mph, maybe 45 mph.
Not 48mph. Not 50 mph. Not 52 mph. More like 40.
This causes problems. Obvious problems. Because when you are driving 55 mph, and someone pulls in front of you, braking or lane changing happens. Then, others are affected. This becomes a chain reaction event, and usually the offending party- the slow driver who hasn’t a clue- drives along unaware and (unfortunately) unchanged, a virus on the road of healthy driving organisms, moving along into the future to infect more innocent organisms.
It may be a killer-virus.
This behavior happens all the time. And I think our community has more of this than other places. Especially more than bigger cities.
Here, in Fargo-Moorhead, folks think they can bumble along well below 55 mph and then accelerate after they reach the flow of traffic.
No. This is not correct.
YOU MUST ACCELERATE TO 55MPH WHILE ON/COMING OFF THE RAMP AND MERGE INTO THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC IN A MANNER CONSISTENT WITH THE TRAFFIC. (I write this like some of these people who do this may actually be reading this blog, much less understand that they are impaired freeway mergers)
The capitalizations, italics, and sentiment in the previous sentence are mine. None of it is from a driver’s manual, state law, or any of that. But I know it’s right. It makes sense. And this is my blog.
This kind of driving is something which makes me use bad words. And, despite my attempts to change my behavior, seems to cause me to react the same way each and every time it happens.
This must mean I am crazy. Perhaps it means I need to move. To one of those bigger cities. Or maybe I need counseling. Maybe all three.
Or perhaps it means I should produce something educational for these miscreants on public access television, where I can disseminate all things correct and enlightening for the freeway merging-challenged among us.
This leads me to a fantasy where I am the creator of a video masterpiece, a production so wonderful and entertaining (yet educational) that it influences hordes of previously unaware dolts to turn inward and say to themselves, ‘wow, next time on that ramp I’m gonna speed up. Glad I watched this show.”
Another thing I have noticed about my own behavior is that I am nearly always curious as to what these drivers look like. I find myself looking at them as I accelerate past. I try to look calm. I say the bad words that I mentioned earlier in a way that shields my anger. Or I think I do.
See, I don’t want to look like one of those crazy road-rage guys (is that sexist? Because I kind of assume that road-rage people are mostly male. maybe not. maybe women are making in-roads on that too. I don’t know. Please offer any information you may have on that if you care to)
Anyway, I think the urge to look at these clueless slow-driving miscreant defective freeway merging dimwits is kind of , uh, odd.
I mean, what do I expect to see? That they will mouth the words, “I’m so sorry. Meant to be going faster. Will do better next time?”
Not gonna happen.
I guess I want to seem nice. But I’m not feeling nice at this time. I’m usually angry.
This must mean I’m guilty of Minnesota Nice. Acting like everything’s all a-ok, but really below the surface you want to annihilate the other person. You want to reduce the other person to utter ruin.
In the end I think I’m moving toward the “I’m crazy” explanation. Why would anyone spend one second in negative thought ruminating about bad driving behavior? There is an ocean of bad driving out there. No, wait, it’s way bigger than an ocean. It’s a couple of continents. Or a couple of oceans. Maybe it’s a hemisphere.
Ok, ok. Proving the point?
AWWWW! My number one highway driving pet-peeve. These people drive me nuts. All it takes is a little gas and our insurance in this state would probably drop. I have seen people stop, literally STOP at the end of an on-ramp because they were to timid to step on the gas and merge at the same speed of the traffic around them. What a hazard.