This is a rant about owning the road

When one watches little kids play, there is a notion of fairness. Games are invented on the spot and in almost every case, fairness is a primary tenet of play.

Then people grow up, desires become more intense, expectations become more intense, there is the learned positive experiences of unfair positive "play", and somewhere along the way, most nice children grow up able to behave like assholes when it suits them. Fairness is something to be used almost exclusively as an emotional leverage within personal relationships. However, where on the road does one find a personal relationship? Right.

The real problem is not the self-decption regarding fairness. That is a true malady, but it is honestly just an inner demon personal to the agent lying to oneself. Larger than that is the manifestation of that inner demon which then puts my life at risk simply because I happen to be driving near you. This should not be my problem, and yet it is.

Here is one of those manifestations: the weaver. This is the person who finds the need to get through traffic at all costs. Every opportunity for changing lanes to get ahead is taken, regardless of the proximities to other vehicles, and regardless of whether the weaver uses a turn signal or not. Whether this is done for satisfaction or for goal-completion, it does put at risk the well-being of others.

Here's another: the tailpiper. This is person who thinks that driving at highway speeds but at parking spot distances is somehow a good combination. If the first car needs to stop for some road hazard, which the tailpipier is not necessary going to see, it is almost a certain guarantee that the tailpiper will plow directly into the car directly in front. The alternative is an almost certainly blind veering into a neighboring lane. (Note: even if the tailpiper knew that the neighboring lane were clear already, the question remains, why risk the behavior of tailpiping instead of using the open lane?). What amazes me too is the frequency of this happening on a mostly open road. That is, three lanes with only two cars, the tailpiper and the tailpiped.

Here's another: the oblivion. This is the person who drives slow in the left lane. Actually this one is not so bad. However, there's the blindsiders. These are the people who absolutely make it impossible for the oblivion to get out of the left lane. They generally race up and pass on the right so closely to the passing car in front of them that the pblivion cannot possibly safely get over to the right.

...which reminds me! The asshole blindsiders. Talk about raping the concept of fair: this is a special breed of blindsiders. Not only have they prevented the oblivion from moving towards the slower right portion of the road, but they are ignoring the turn signal of the oblivion who is actively trying to accomodate the greater good of the traffic (and perhaps even some of his own needs as a driver). He trying to get out of their way, so the solution is to combination tailpipe/blindside him. Yeah. That's a good idea.

Another: the entrance-hog. When entering a highway, it is customary for the entering car to yield to the traffic already present. Lately it seems that people will first consider this circumstances with about 50 feet left in the entrance lane. Then, the entrance-hog will feel entitled to the traffic lane regardless of what traffic might actually be there.

Here's a particulary favorite combination: the tailpiping entrance-hog. This is not the first car of a set entering a highway. No, this car is tailgating someone while entering a highway. And feeling entitled to enter traffic regardless of the traffic that might already be there. Can't see clearly in front, hasn't looking just behind and to the left, and only 100 feet of road left. Yeah.

Another: the entrance-flanker. This is the person who began as a tailpiper entrance-hog. Now, once the front car has moved over, the entrance-flanker races forward to enter the highway in front of the person that he had just tailpiped. Way to add fuel to that fire, dunceboy.

Another: the entrance-gunner. This is the one who enters a highway and immediately crosses multiple lanes. We all know that owning the road means having the lane of your choice, and we want instant gratification, dammit! Of course, other traffic is irrelevant to this concern.

...and his sibling: the exit-gunner. No turn signal. No concern. Strainght from racing in the left lane to the exit ramp in under 2 seconds. And everyone else be damned!

..and his unspoken cousin: the exit-sleeper. This person feels the need to start slowing down about a full mile before the exit ramp. Why?!

...and his sibling: the entrance-sleeper. This person forgot, or doesn't want, to try to find highway speed.

Another manifestation: the high-beamer. This person needs special attention. There is a time and a place for the courtesy high-beam, like when the person in the left lane is keeping pace with the person to one's right, and together traffic is being blocked. However, the person who sees that the left lane driver is in fact passing the vehicle to their right, and then races up to tailpipe them, should not have a single thing to say about the passing not happening fast enough. This is precisely the sense of fairness that the high-beamer is taking a dump on. Realize that it's only 5-10 seconds of your whole life. Not to mention that you're still moving around highway speeds here. This is not like the person at the grocery checkout counter who decides to split the payment between cash and check. You're still getting to your destination pretty darn fast here. Grow some patience already.

Here's someone who the high-beamer should take out some agression on: the passophobe. The passophobe drives all well and fine, usually, but when it comes to passing someone, which the passophobe is very intent on doing, the passophobe will have to slow down a lot to complete this action. Racing up at 78 mph. Going along. Going along. Go to pass the truck in the right lane. Drop down to 66 mph. Take forever. Take forever. Eventually pass (and probably cut off) the truck. Immediately race back up to 78 mph. Smack. You deserved it.

Another: the conversationalist. This person is so wrapped up in their conversation that the notion that driving has consequences is simply absent. The conversationalist is usually a set up for another manifestation. In fact, this is generally my demarcation between asshole and asshat. The former intends the behavior whereas the latter does not.

There is a variant of the conversationalist: the celephoner. This person is extra wrapped up in the conversation because one needs to imagine all of the non-verbal communication cues that people present in the car would have normally provided. The celephoner usually also has a diminished scope in front. I generally expect celephoners to be tailpiping and not relaize it. Similarly, they are good at entrance-hogging and blindsiding. And they're often good at doing it one-handed... until the accident... which was the other guy's fault... somehow.

There is the abstract painter, for whom staying in between the lines is just too conventional, man. Ease up, don't square out, it's cool.

Let's get off the highway for a bit. Here's something for the local streets. The left-turn blocker. This is the jerk who entered the road to make a left turn but who could not complete the turn because the far side of the street had traffic at a stand still (or tailpiping). so now the left-turn blocker is blocker the other direction of traffic. Yeah, that makes sense.

The red-light tailpiper. As if somehow, tailpiping magically connected you to the car in front of you so that if the smallest speck of their front bumper entered the intersection before the light turned red, you get out of running the red light free of charge. Yeah, and you're no smarter than the dog's tail that knocks things off of the coffee table.

The double-parker. No need.

The slant-parker. This seems to happen more in times of snow and ice. That is, the piles of snow have been building up and building up. They are encroaching on the parking spots. Resultantly, cars begin to park further out into the lane of traffic, because how else are the passengers going to get out. Pretty soon the right lane is intermittently full of dangerously parked cars. Why dangerous? Well, if there's still snow out there, the double-yellow line might be obscured. As such, drivers will use the poorly-parked cars as a reference for how far over to be. On a four-lane two-way road, those middle two opposite-direction "lanes" overlap. Can you smell disaster?

The parking lot hog. This person is just running in for a few items. The fact that they managed to park a sedan across 5 separate parking spaces is still amazing. Honestly, I wouldn't mind the inconvenience of walking more if every car parking across the parking spaces like that got booted for a month. It's just rude and inconsiderate. If there were that many parking spaces to begin with, even a bad parking job should only be hanging a little into the second spot. What the hell, folks?

The parking lot inventor. Hmm... look, my car fits here - it must therefore be a parking space, despite the paint lines and sign that indicate otherwise. Traffic engineers (hint: professional people trained on this issue) are smarter than you regarding parking lots. Deal with it, and parking where you're supposed to.

The convenient bicyclist. These of all of those people who ride bicycles in the street, who get upset with cars not sharing the road, who then running red lights rather than stop for it because they just a little too inconvenient.

Anyway, check back in occasionally. I'm sure I'll think up more manifestation of unfair driving. Last updated 2008-09-02.