You can even do it in heavy traffic. Heck, if you can get all the lanes abreast to have one line that will do it, you can get stop and go traffic jams smoothly flowing at a low but steady speed within 10 minutes! It's the *******s that have to stand on the gas and slam on the brakes that keep everything ****ed up.
See it all the time around here... everybody's gotta bunch up, whether it's between lights, or piling up behind some dummy on the interstate who's scared to pass a slow truck to their right.
I dread my all-too-frequent trips on the state (4-lane)highway within Newark city limits... sitting looking at five green lights in a row, but no nearby traffic moving because everybody is bumper to bumper, as if that will get them somewhere quicker. Average delay to get going when the light changes is seven seconds; a lot more if there's more than four cars ahead of me. During the brutal evening rush, southbond through Newark on that road I average two light cycles for each block. There are dedicated turning lanes, and several intersections where tunrs are not even allowed... yet it's always the same. Zoom, stop, zoom, stop... bumper to bumper like stupid lemmings.
And don't you love the drivers who, because they see the left lane not as a passing lane, but a cruise-at-any-speed-you-dare lane, feel that the best strategy when they come up behind some sluggard doing only, say, 85 in the left lane is to get right up on their bumper, for miles and miles, even if they can easily pass them on the right? How often can you get away with that before you wind up slamming into somebody? It's interesting around here, especially on the highways leading west, because the PA drivers always cruise at exactly 65 in the left lane, no matter what... and NJ and NY drivers see that lane as their personal Autobahn.
I have no problem giving up the left lane to such nimrods... provided I have somewhere to go. WTF do they expect you to do when you're already pushing 90 and there's bumper-to-bumper traffic to the right?
Only place I will
not back off is in a toll plaza. Try to be reasonable at any NYC area toll plaza during peak hours and you will simply never get through. It's WAR. And the ones who will stay neck and neck with me, leaning on the horn and cursing, until there's just not enough room for two cars, are always the a-holes who sneak ahead in a closed lane, or the shoulder, or a lane for which they don't have the exact change/EZPass/whatever. I've driven in LA, SF and Chicago at rush hour, and never seen anything quite like it... but every time I'm on the road around here, some jackass takes my breath away. It's amazing. Okay, I forgot Boston... Boston is a special case. Around here we call Boston-area drivers "Mass-holes"...
Speaking of which, just today I was at a stop sign-controlled, one-lane onramp to a six-lane freeway (way too many of those in NJ), waiting for a break in the bunched-up 75-mph traffic in the right lane, when this dumbass in a SUV comes up the ramp and squeezes alongside me on my left, completely blocking my view. This fellow was obviously on some sort of high-priority mission, like every damn driver in this area. He was not even looking at me- he was just gonna go as soon as a hole came up. I had to inch forward until I was almost in the freeway lane, so I could see... and yes, he followed me a little, damn him! Those stop sign onramps are bad enough when you
can see... this was outrageous.
Another day on the road, another gray hair... sigh.
