10 Reasons Why Driving on Highways Sends Me Over The Edge

1. People who don’t accelerate on the entrance ramps.

  Folks, this is not rocket science. When you’re on the service road, you can only go about 40 miles an hour or so. Those whizzing cars on the big-ass freeway to your left are probably going at least 60, and probably 80 if their radar detectors have given them the “all clear”. Do you understand that these numbers are different? More importantly, do you understand that action is now required on your part? If not, let me explain.

  You need to shove the accelerator to the floor until you are almost airborne and then fling your piece of crap car into the roaring stream of humanity. That’s all there is to it, and that’s the ONLY way to do it. Do not inch your way along and expect people to calmly shift to the far lane and let you in. Those other people are not here to make you happy. They have things to do with their lives, and that checklist does not include compensating for timid losers who lack aggression. Move your ass.

  And by no means should you dare to actually slam on your brakes when you realize that things might not be working out for you with this merge thing. When you do that, everybody behind you has to also slam on their brakes, and we instantly hate you. We will get out of our cars, and we will beat you with road debris.

2. People who are already on the highway but refuse to move over when you try to enter, even though there’s nobody else in the other lane.

  This is just pure hatefulness. You can SEE me flying up the entrance ramp, doing the right thing by initiating the neutron accelerator and professionally flashing my turn signal. Yet you refuse to budge, probably due to some childhood mishap wherein you were denied something you wanted and you‘ve been bitter ever since. That still doesn’t justify your self-involved need to ignore humanity.

  Of course, we also have the more-infuriating class of lane-change-refusing neurotics: the evil people who will actually speed up in an attempt to abort your merge mission. These are the cars that are WAY back on the highway, so that in a normal world you have plenty of time to merge with minimal risk. But once these satanic cars grasp what you are trying to do, they jump on the gas with both feet and race to cut you off.

  This is just insane. Why would you do that? What happened to you that makes you WANT to do this? Seriously, pull off the road right now and call somebody, because you need help.

3. People who get on the highway at one entrance ramp and then immediately get back off at the next exit.

  There is no reason for this. Instead of staying on the service road where you can get to your destination in the next hundred yards or so, you’re going to force your useless existence on the rest of society with a pointless move. See, I’m one of the non-neurotic people who don’t view your merge attempt as some form of challenge, so I will slow down or move over so you can access the freeway.

  But when I see you stay in the transition lane and then zip back down the next exit, after I’ve done the right thing to accommodate your entrance to the highway of life, I instantly want to exit as well. And follow you to wherever you’re going, tell everyone around us that you suck, and then take your life.

4. People who insist on driving the same speed as you.

  Why are you doing that? As long as I’m not needing to change lanes, I don’t care. You can do whatever you want. But when I need to move into your lane for whatever reason, you need to quit. Because you’re RIGHT THERE, I have to either pull ahead or slow down to get into your lane. So when you duplicate my actions and also speed up or slow down, I twist off a little bit. Stop doing that. This is how serial killers are born.

5. People who ride your ass for no reason.

  You know who I’m talking about. You can be in the middle lane of a 3-lane highway with nobody around for miles. Then here comes some idiot who gets right on your bumper and won’t go around. Dude, what is wrong with you? All of the other lanes are clear. If you’re not happy with my current rate of speed, you have plenty of options.

  You can pass me on the left, you can pass me on the right, you can slam into the median and die in a fiery crash. Whatever. You just need to back off. Because at some point I’m going to snap, and I’m going to hit my brakes, and ain’t nobody gonna be happy about that. Fair warning.

6. People who don’t understand what the dashed lines on the highway mean.

  How hard is it to stay in your lane? Seriously. What jacked-up mental problem do you have that you can’t pay attention to this? If you’ve managed to get a driver’s license, then somebody at some point has explained the concept of a “lane” to you. You pick one, and you stay there, until it’s time for you to exit and visit with your therapist. If this confuses you, stay home. Pizza Hut delivers.

7. People who think a car is just one big phone booth.

  What is it about the mere act of getting behind the wheel that causes some folks to instantly reach for their cell phone? They are dialing before they’ve even released the emergency brake. And then they drive for miles without even once looking out the window to check road conditions.

  It doesn’t matter how skilled of a multi-tasker you think you are, if you’re on the phone you’re not paying full attention to the much more important act of driving. I don’t care if you’ve got the blue-tooth or the hands-free or God as your co-pilot. It’s not fair to the responsible drivers that we have to deal with you chatting about who had too many shots at the bar last night, causing you to not realize there’s a curve in the highway and you drift across three lanes before taking corrective action. Put. The. Phone. Down.

8. Jerks in fast cars who can’t stay in one lane.

  We are on a roadway. We are not trapped in a giant pinball machine. There is no reason in the world for any car to be zipping all over the place, cutting people off with just inches to spare. And it never even crosses their mind to use a turn signal, so you have no idea what the high-speed idiot is going to do next. Of course, there’s never a police car around when all of this is going on. They only show up when I accidentally go one mile an hour over the speed limit in a school zone.

9. Jerks in slow cars, not matter what the lane.

  There is a reason why we have minimum speeds on the highways. Your vehicle needs to be traveling fast enough so that you don’t single-handedly create a twelve-mile backup and force the city to shut down. And yes, I understand that there are times when a person’s transportation choice might be limited to a poorly-functioning automobile that has velocity issues. That’s fine. But there’s a special lane for that. It’s called the service road.

10. People driving huge trailers who think that sheer size gives them ownership of the highway.

  These guys do whatever they want. If they decide to change lanes, they just do it. It’s up to you to get your ass out of the way. And if the freeway is crowded and you can’t quickly escape to another lane, your only option is to slam on your brakes. Which means that two seconds later, you are going to be rear-ended by everyone in a three-mile radius who is talking on a cell phone because they have forgotten that they are even driving a car.

  Once you crawl out of the wreckage of your flaming vehicle, you then have to limp your way across several lanes of traffic. This is risky, because you have to dodge the people who were not involved in the pile-up and are therefore racing by. They won’t slow down, because you’re obviously not dead, and that’s boring.

  And don’t think you’re safe until you have crawled completely off the road. You have to make it past the access lane, which is the most dangerous place off all. Because you don’t know what type of access-ramp driver you are going to encounter. Cross your fingers that the next car is an ass-dragger, and then scamper off the pavement.

  Two hours later, as you lie bleeding in the dirt, you will finally hear the wail of an approaching police car. Prepare for the final humiliation: You will be the only one who gets a ticket out of this whole mess. Because that’s just how it goes.