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!