Sunshine and Light

Commute

My morning commute is for the most part pretty uneventful, except for one thing: merging onto the highway. Every part of the country that I've lived has had it's own driving quirks. Asheville, being a huge retirement community, had about half the drivers with their blinkers on for miles. On the highway. Memphians wouldn't move out of the way of a fire truck or ambulance if it was headed to their own house. Houstonians never saw a yellow/orange/red light that they couldn't potentially run. St Louisans never met a stop sign they couldn't roll. And hereabouts they HATE the merge.

It's a two-part hate. First, the merging parties often don't have much room to pick up speed, so they will STOP at the end of the merge lane if the time isn't just right. Which means that everyone behind them stops and now the whole group has to go from 0-55 in about 3 feet. During rush hour. The concept of stopping further up the ramp to buy themselves a little extra acceleration room seems to have eluded my fellow commuters. Even that is like trying to fly a 747 off the deck of an aircraft carrier, but it gives you a fighting chance. The second part of this nightmare merging relationship is that those already on the highway fight to make sure no one else gets in front of them. Which means that what's a car and a half length when you're accelerating usually ends up being a half a car length by the time you're ready to merge. This gives you the options of merging anyway, and having the &%(*#@ on your bumper flashing lights for the rest of your drive, driving on the shoulder and hoping nobody's lost a tire there recently until you can get behind the &%(*#@, or stopping.

And after 7 years, I still find myself yelling at other drivers in the morning. It's the worst part of my commute.

posted by MyHusbandRules @ 7:08 AM