September 1999

Rush hour sucks!  I think we can all agree on that.  It sucks for you, it sucks for
for me, it sucks for everyone.  So why is it that some people think they have more
of a right to get to their destination than everyone else, and that this in turn entitles
them to drive in the shoulder?!  Take the car above, for instance.  Not the car in
front of me, but the one to the right.  That car is in the shoulder, which, the last time
I checked, is not a travel lane!  So who the heck does he think he is?  Is he some
sort of V.I.P. or something?  He must be!  He has his own personal express lane!!!
Doesn't it ever occur to people who do this that the shoulder is also known as the
"emergency lane"?  In other words, some poor guy could be changing a flat tire or
something, only to have Mr. V.I.P. come around the curve and take him out.  And
of course, in our society of lemmings, it can never be just one person doing it.  If
one person does it, others will surely follow, to wit:

Here we are, exactly 36 seconds later, same car in front of me as in the first shot,
but lo and behold, there's another car driving in the non-lane to the right!  This jerk
is driving down the middle of the "gore," as folks around here call it.  Up ahead, the
cars in my lane are going to merge over the right to exit off the freeway.  At the
same time, the cars on the right hand side are trying to merge left to get onto the
freeway.  This situation -- with cars merging in opposite directions at the same
place at the same time on a combination entrance/exit ramp -- is tense enough as it
is without this yahoo driving down the middle of it all, being some place he isn't
supposed to be!  This all reminds of something the philosopher Bertrand Russell
once wrote:  "Many people would sooner die than think.  In fact, they do."