Rules of the Road

Having completed my second 1,000 mile roundtrip in only a week, a few thoughts came to me during my 16 hour driving day yesterday. The northbound trip, which took only 6 1/2 hours a week ago Saturday, took nearly 8 hours yesterday thanks to the holiday traffic. The southbound trip much the same. Not only were there more drivers out there, but stupider drivers as well (I know stupider may not be a word but it works for me).

Amazingly, all the traffic we encountered was in the 250 mile stretch of I-5 between the bottom of the Grapevine in the south and the I-5/580 split in the north. Los Angeles, where I expected problems, was clean as a whistle going both directions. Oakland and the north Bay weren't bad either. The aforementioned stretch of highway is two lanes in each direction and nearly straight as a chalk line. It should be easy for large volumes of cars to move along that section reasonably swiftly.

But not yesterday. Nobody out there seemed capable of maintaining a consistent speed. One minute we're going 70, then 40, then 80, then 0. I've never run into that many people with poor driving skills in one day. If 43 cars can go three-wide and 14 rows deep at 195 mph and not hit one another (like they do at Daytona and Talledega every year), surely a bunch of tourists can at least maintain 65 without constantly bottling up.

Unfortunately, such was not the case. To those oblivions who believe they are standing still while the world revolves under them and takes them where they want to go regardless of the needs of others, I have a few rules of the road developed during my 16 hour marathon:

1. The signs along the route say "Slower Traffic Keep Right". If you are in the fast lane and somebody catches up with you, by definition YOU are the slower traffic. Please keep right. If the speed limit is 70 (as it is for much of I-5 through much of Central California) and you want to drive 75, you belong in the slow lane. I realize that you have the cruise control on your land yacht locked on 75 and you consider yourself quite the hellraiser for going 5 over the speed limit, but trust me you're holding everyone up and many people are using very unflattering language to describe your ancestors. Kindly remove your head from whatever orifice it's in and get over.
2. Do not flash your lights at anybody...ever. While that may be quite the fashionable thing to do on Germany's Autobahn when you're going 200 and somebody else only wants to go 150, in California it's a sure fire way to make people mad. If I'm doing my best to stay out of your way but you insist on flashing your headlights at me, I will insist on flashing my brake lights at you. And if you persist in annoying me, I will pull alongside the next car in the slow lane and lock my speed with theirs and leave you behind me for the next 10 miles all the while watching you in my rear view mirror so I don't miss the moment when your head explodes.
3. Don't throw things out your window...ever. I'm not an eco-nut, but there's plenty of garbage alongside our highways without you adding yours. Surely you can hang onto your junk until your next pit stop and then toss it out. And twice last night I saw drivers toss lit cigarettes out the window, both times in areas where there was dry brush along both sides of the highway. If you think holidays can mess up a road, try lighting the brush on fire on either side and see what that does to your trip.
4. Don't gawk at every little thing. I swear if you leave a shiny soda can along the highway half the traffic will slow down to look at it. At one point during the trip home I was feeling pretty good. I had driven the first 150 miles without the slightest problem. I was smokin'! Then everything came to a screeching halt and for about seven miles we crept along bumper-to-bumper. I'm sure you've had thoughts as I did. When I get to the end of this long line there better be five cars overturned and on fire to make it worth sitting in this traffic. But lo and behold when we finally got to the source of the massive back-up we found a Highway Patrolman changing a tire for some stranded motorist. That was it.

In the past three weekends I've driven enough miles to go from here to Boston, and when you add in the trip to my daughter's Christmas concert next weekend, I could be well on my way to Greenland. How about we all try to show some smarts when we have to share the highway?