If You Drive Like This, You STINK!

This morning was foggy. Less than 1 mile visibility. Sky: light gray. Road: light gray. Median dividing wall: light gray. Color of car belonging to idiot driver on highway 35: light gray.

You will please recall that Austin drivers tailgate like it was a frikken NASCAR race, constantly.

This morning, I had to get on the highway. Everyone traveling 60 miles per hour, and the traffic is 15 feet between each pair of bumpers in the #3 lane. Great. Sometimes, because they tailgate so much around here, the Standard Operating Procedure is "Ya gotta git in where ya fit in" and you just insert your car into the 1.5 car-length hole between the cars next to you.

Turn signals can be counter-productive, as in the case of this morning. I put on my turn signal when I was in the blending lane. Dude in the light gray car starts to close the gap. From my blind spot. In a car that is nearly invisible under the current weather conditions.

So I did what was for me a first-ever: A Blind Man's Merge at 60 miles per hour. With a foot and a half of my car in his lane, this cat decides to advance. He passed me as I was sitting directly over the dividing line! Wow. The real kicker was, he wasn't even coming up on his exit. He just REALLY wanted to be right behind THAT car instead of MY car. As I proceeded to the #2 and #1 lanes, I saw this cat continue tailgating within < 1 car length behind the truck in front of him, past two exits.