Behind the hole
stan posted this at 10:49 AM, and
3 of you responded
A couple of weeks ago, Jim posted part of someone else's blog about Texan drivers, which included an excerpt about his hole theory—that in traffic, you own the "hole" between you and the car in front of you, and it needs to be just the right size: because if it's too small, you'll rear-end the car if it stops suddenly, but if it's too big, everyone uses the opportunity to cut you off.
This was the source of my commute torture this morning. The car in front of me was going the same speed as the rest of traffic, theoretically, but had too big of a hole; so many, many people cut in front of him, which caused him to slow down, making the lane slower for all of us behind him. I couldn't get around the guy for about two miles, and when he finally changed lanes (into the one that I always move over to), I wasn't about to keep following him. I waited, passed him, and moved in front of him. Not surprisingly, there was plenty of room.
3 Talked Back:
At February 7, 2006 at 4:53:00 PM CST,
Jim said...
both here in Illinois, and where I usually visit in Missouri, there are four-lane highways that become two-lanes just before their respective traffic lights. there are lots of warnings that this is about to happen, signs, blinkers, broken glass on the pavement. drivers in the right lanes, however, just pretend that their lane is not going to just disappear right before the light. okay, they are ignorant, we all know that. what makes me crazy are the drivers in front of me in the through lane who slow down and leave holes large enough for two or three or four of these right-lanes drivers to pull into. this, of course, means that the drivers who are doing the wrong thing end up better off that those of us doing the right thing.
At February 7, 2006 at 5:16:00 PM CST,
stan said...
I call those ignorant people Last Second Larrys.
In a merging situation, ideally (to me) people should be merging as early as possible, with the drivers in the destination lane letting them in one-car-per-car, like a zipper. I will usually let one car in, even when they're getting close to Last Second Larry status. I rarely let in two cars.
If I have space, and if the signal is on early enough, I'll slow down to let a semi-truck in, but if they are LSL, forget it.
At February 7, 2006 at 7:42:00 PM CST,
Jim said...
part of the problem is a new phenomenon called "I'm a half mile from the stop light but I am going to start slowing down now so it turns green by the time that I get there" -- my guess is that this is the result of drivers who thought it would be cool to have a stick-shift but who are too lazy to actually, you know, shift
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