Drive! Your! Car!

A few things that really tick me off when I’m driving on the freeway are the following:

1.  Passing on the right.

2.  Weaving in and out of traffic at high speeds.

3. Tailgating.

4. Last minute lane changes to exit the freeway.

I looked on the California DMV’s site and they are pretty clear about what lanes are used for what purpose.  To wit:

Drive in the lane with the smoothest flow of traffic. If you can choose among three lanes, pick the middle lane for the smoothest driving. To drive faster, pass, or turn left, use the left lane. When you choose to drive slowly or enter or turn off the road, use the right lane. If there are only two lanes in your direction, pick the right lane for the smoothest driving. Don’t weave in and out of traffic. Stay in one lane as much as possible.

When driving home from work, I marvel at the idiots who get all pissed off at me for driving in the middle lane — when the left lane next to us is completely clear of traffic.  But what do they do?  Yep. They pass on the right, only to be slowed down by traffic that’s moving slower than I am.  Then to really show everyone around them that it’s so very important to get home 30 seconds faster than everyone else, they do the “angry lane change” where they come close to clipping the car ahead or behind them. 

The CHP is always talking about clamping down on drunk drivers or people who don’t wear their seatbelts (i.e, “Click It, or Ticket”), but I don’t see anything to deal with a bigger problem:  lousy drivers who think the rules of the road are there because, well, they seem like nice things to have.