excuse me, mr/ms. driver...what, exactly, is going through your mind when you decide to do that...?

two incidents. i'm going to attribute the slow speeds to fear of wet. it was no longer raining, and the roads had dried up enough that no water was flying up from cars. what else could it be...? (don't worry... this is not a rant about people driving slow... at least that's not *the* reason these people are making their way into my blog...)

scene 1: merc, driving home on 66, in the second lane from the right (how lanes should always be counted!).

a white tercel gets on from 7100, and has her left blinker on. hello, woman with blinker on. she merges onto 66. hello, woman with blinker still on. going 40. thank you for merging into 66. glad to see you didn't actually manage to cut anybody off, going 40. hello, woman with blinker *still* on. holy crap. you're moving over as i'm approaching you. there's nobody in front of you. what are you doing?!?

luckily, there was nobody to my left. otherwise, i'd have to either a) slam on my brakes and hope she didn't do the same, or b) change lanes to the right and hope she didn't swerve back. of course, there's always the risk of her continuing her lane changing rampage and pushing me onto the shoulder, but that didn't happen this time (a prius tried to do that to me once, when the road ahead was clear on all four lanes... whyyyyy?).

scene 2: merc, driving home on 495, in the fourth lane (that's the left lane, for those of you who aren't familar).

the lane's moving along at about 60, and then it slows down to about 40... i'm behind some large vehicles, but from what i can see (far ahead), the lane's pretty packed, so i guess that we just ran out of space. poopie. we're now slower than the third lane, so i move over, figuring i might as well head to the right to prepare for my exit. wait... why am i slowing down again? oh, good... i see a giant gap in my previous lane, in front of a black kia amanti. the black kia amanti moving in front of the van in front of me. i feel cheated.

it's fine, though... i'll just continue to move over. i need to exit anyway. i move into the second lane. i see that the amanti is still signaling. i pull back to see if he'll move over. nothing. okay... so i drive as normal, hoping that he just left his blinker on by accident. the guy waits until the front of my car is four feet behind his, and then starts to move over. i slam on my brakes. i am now very unhappy, as he is pretty much just drifting into my lane. i can't even tell if he's *trying* to come over... but he's an entire tire into my lane, and i can't go around him. slowly, but surely, this guy comes over again. and, of course, the blinker is still on.

i've decided that he didn't move over because he was holding up traffic. he moved over because he needed to exit. there's a gap next to him (ish). i'll just wait for him to move, 'cause there's no way i'm sitting behind this idiot through the exit. i'm sure he'll try to merge into someone, or forget to leave the merge lane before it ends... something like that. plan works, guy exits... and is somehow more than a football field behind me by the time i get to the merge lane for the exit, even though, at the beginning of the exit wall, he was two cars behind me. i have no idea.

wait, maybe i do... fear of wet.

***

silver lining! i've got a silver lining!

i'd planned my next installment of driving courtesy to cover following distances and lane selection. i've already covered lane changing.

so, if you want to find out what *courtesy* guidelines these drivers could have kept in mind to avoid pissing me (and many drivers around me) off? read "changing lanes and merging." then wait patiently for my next installment, including "lane selection."

stay tuned!

driving courtesy, part 1

i just can't take it anymore. read these. pass these along (maybe to be read, maybe to be passed along), and correct me anywhere i'm being an idiot. thank you.

changing lanes and merging:

you *always* need a gap in traffic to do either of these, and the size of the gap depends on the relative speed of 1) you, and 2) the traffic in your target lane; the greater the difference in speed, the larger the gap will need to be. this means that, if you're in a slow lane, and there's a gap in traffic next to you, you might not be safe to move over. the gap needs to be large enough that you will be able to get up to speed (read: the speed of the car you want to be in front of, not the speed you want to go) before said car reaches you and needs to hit his/her brakes. in the more severe case, if you make the driver have to *slam* on the brakes, how do you know you won't get rear-ended? no, drivers don't like to wreck their cars, but if they can't help but hit you when you get in front of them... guess what? it's your fault. you pay.

now, note that i said you need to get up the other car's speed. if you're not planning on going at least as fast as the car you're getting in front of, you shouldn't make the move. i don't care if you think they're speeding. you wouldn't want other people doing it to you, so don't do it to other people. more importantly, it's dangerous to do that (what if the other driver's not paying attention? what if the other driver suffers from road rage? just don't do things that will piss people off. please.) if they're going faster that you'd like to go, wait for the car to pass, then get *behind* it. if you're uncomfortable going the speed of any car in that lane, you don't belong in it.

if you're moving out of a lane that is stopped (or essentially stopped), you'll need a gap as large or larger than (depending on the distance between you and the car currently in front of you) you'd need to make a right turn into traffic. good point. if you're making a right turn into traffic, the "up to speed" rule applies as well.

now to the topic of disappearing lanes. if the dotted lines between your lane and another lane disappear, you can *not* just assume that the new, merged lane, is yours. there are rules about the right-of-way. one lane was reduced. the car in the *other* lane has right-of-way.

it saddens me that i even have to put this in here. i see people drive to the end of the reduced lane and keep driving without checking to see if they're clear all the time. i've even been honked at by a lady who was very angry that i was in her new lane, where she wanted to be, when her lane ended. i was in front of her, and there was nobody behind me. lady, you forced yourself into the shoulder; i didn't do it. good job.

braking:

i don't even know what to say here. don't brake randomly. at highway speeds, your car should want to slow down if you let off the accelerator. if you've peeked at your speedometer and found that you're a few mph over where you want to be, just let off the gas. you should slow to your appropriate speed. hitting the brakes in this situation could cause massive chain-reaction-braking, and it also hurts your fuel economy (especially if you do it all the time).

conversely, if the car in front of you brakes, brake only if you have to. i am *not* telling you to let your car get uncomfortably close to the car in front of you. i am *not* telling you to hold off on braking until you have to slam on your brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of you. what i *am* saying is that, if the car in front of you is *far* in front of you, or if the brake lights ahead of you seem to just be saying "my driver's foot is on the brake, but there's no pressure being applied," just be *prepared* to hit your brakes (and then hit them if necessary).

oh! that brings up another point! i know i'm saying to "hit" your brakes, but you shouldn't be literally *hitting* your brakes. you apply pressure, evenly (except in case of emergency). actually, this rule applies to your accelerator as well. you apply pressure to your accelerator. you shouldn't "blip" either pedal... unless you know what you're doing. if you don't know when you're *supposed* to blip, then you shouldn't be doing it.

if you're on an exit, and you're coming up to a merge lane, unless there's no merge area, or a very short merge lane, you should *not* be hitting your brakes unless it's vital to hit a hole (a gap in traffic you'll fit in). same rule applies if there's a mini-forest between you and the road you're merging onto. unless there's no room to make adjustments once you can see the road, you should *not* be slowing down to prepare to merge.

why do people do this anyway? you have to speed up to merge (unless you're taking the curvy exit ramp faster than the not-ramp. and then the question becomes... why would you do *that*?), so why slow down before you speed up?

***

of course, there are exceptions. take these as guidelines, not rules. for instance, if you have trouble judging the time it would take you to brake, it would be better for you to brake when you don't have to than to not brake when you do. this should be obvious. so should the other exceptions.

i'm probably negating most good i could be doing here by saying "exercise discretion," but i can't float around inside everybody's head, and i can't list out every exception, just like i can't list out every guideline. the point of this series(?) is so that you'll have a better basis for making these decisions.

***

yes, i know that i am an asian female, and that this post becomes extremely ironic because of that. i know that's a stereotype, and stereotypes are bad, but, more often than not, if someone inadvertently tries to kill me on the road, that person is of my own kind. i am not your average asian, and i am not your average female (it's a shame, though... if i were, then more "average" asian females would be reading this, and i'd be able to make more of a difference! but then someone else would have to write it...)

i'd also like to note that these are not driving *tips* (though many need those as well); they're more along the lines of driving *etiquette.* that means that you should be following these rules even if you "aren't interested in cars or driving." this is how to be *polite.*

feel free to leave more guidelines in the comments, and i'll include them under the appropriate headers (this include headers in entries not yet written). i will give credit where it's due.