New Car for my Birthday!

. . . the hard way.

Almost. We were cruising along at 50MPH on a three lane-median-three lane surface street headed home from Church. We were in the #2 lane, heading North. A green-light was up ahead at the intersection with a four lane street crossing our six lane street. The people on our right (pointed West) sucked at driving. There were actually TWO cars involved in this dumbassery today. The one was following the other, and they wanted to be going North for two blocks, then make a Left turn (West again). This means they needed to pop onto our road.

The law and good sense and courtesy all say: turn into the right lane from the right lane. This means their #2 lane would merge into our #3 lane when traffic was clear. So what did they do? They went from their #2 right lane to our #2 MIDDLE lane when traffic was coming at 50MPH! Fortunately, I saw this coming with enough time to spare that I was already saying badwords under my breath at them by the time my Darling Wife realized what was going on. Later, she told me she saw that they were totally oblivious to our presence until we swerved around them.

Have you ever seen bats emerging by their ten-thousands from a cave and a person is standing in the mouth of the cave? The bats flow around the person like water, and close ranks again on the other side of the person. That's what I did to this car. The first car had already turned into our lane and the second car was in the middle of the intersection (obviously?) in the middle of a low-speed turning maneuver. I had time to make sure the #1 lane was clear and swerved as we entered the intersection, to go around these jerks, then back around into our #2 lane as we passed them. The first car had, by this time, moved to the #3 lane. Why they did not just go there in the first place is beyond me.

The first car, around which my instincts told me I would have to swerve was, amusingly, a new Nissan Juke.

Pilot trainees have to put in so many hours behind a stick with an instructor present, before they go off on their own into the wild blue yonder. Somebody explain to me why, if we are going to require mandatory licensing of drivers to use the public roadways, we don't also have mandatory TRAINING of drivers?