Posted On: Friday - May 19th 2017 10:25AM MST
In Topics: Cars Curmudgeonry Artificial Stupidity Peak Stupidity Roadshow
What is so hard about this? The interstate highway I was driving on last week had a construction left-lane-closed sign a whole MILE away from the start of the merge. The traffic was relatively light. Almost all of the cars in that left lane just stayed in that lane until they had to move, causing way more of a traffic jam than necessary. I do realize that one lane can only carry half the traffic, so a big back-up can occur, but it would not have with this light traffic, under normal levels of stupidity.
Is it that drivers are so distracted by their electronics that they don't read the average sign at all? They may believe the electronics will give them all the information they need - there's an app for navigation, another giving active construction zones, yeah, but, hey this means they are not looking out of the damn car much of the time! That's the scary part about it.
Yeah, the electronics can't be wrong - there's computers in there! They wouldn't take you off road into the desert, or into a lake would they? "I'll merge when my 8G iPhone tells me to merge and not a minute sooner!" Idiots are all over the place now - get the lane change over with while traffic is still flowing smoothly and there will be no traffic jam at all, in many cases.
The long-term answer for "Is there an app for that?" is a big "YES", called a self-driving car. Of course we've all heard about them, but the way most people are
Jump to the ground as the turbo slows
To cross the borderline.
Run like the wind as excitement shivers
up and down my spine.
But down in his barn
my uncle preserved for me
an old machine
for fifty-odd years.
To keep it as new
has been his dearest dream.
I strip away the old debris
that hides a shining car,
a brilliant Red Barchetta
from a better, vanished time.
We'll fire up the willing engine
responding with a roar,
tires spitting gravel
I commit my weekly crime.
The song was written in the early 1980's. I would groove to this one no matter what the lyrics said, as it's all the tune and the sound, but what a creative imagination Neil Peart had (the drummer who wrote the lyrics)!
Comments:
Moderator
Friday - May 19th 2017 5:53PM MST
Yep, that is very familiar. The only time I am ambivalent about letting people in after they do that is when it's on a slower road where there are lots of other roads people could have come from after the first merge sign. Then there's no telling whether the car trying to muscle is indeed an asshole or is unfamiliar and just found out he needs to merge in. It weighs on my mind and I give them a break (or not, depending on how the day's going).
WorkingClass
Friday - May 19th 2017 1:10PM MST
You pass the sign that says right lane closed ahead. The left lane begins to fill up and slow down. The ass holes speed to the front of the line and count on the decent human beings to let them in. I never let them in. If they get close I honk and give them the finger. I have no reason to think they are stupid. I just hate them.