on-ramp passers

[bhskittykatt]

Went to finish up some last-minute Christmas shopping and traffic was...actually pleasant? No way! Just this one little incident on the way back.

Maybe this has happened to other people. You're on an on-ramp, and the person ahead of you is slowly putzing along. All the traffic on the interstate graciously moves over a lane to let on the line of cars that is behind the putzer.

The car behind you, though, is impatient. So they take advantage of the freshly vacated right lane and suddenly cut over and gun it. Now, they're on the interstate, beside you so you can't merge on. They can't move over to let you on, since the next lane over is full, and there's not enough time to actually pass you before the end of the on-ramp. Something's gotta give, and it doesn't seem fair that it should be me.

The car backed off to let me on, but really, you can't wait your turn in line? Yeah, I don't like the slowpoke either, but if I'm stuck behind him then I'm stuck and there's not much I can do until I'm able to get onto the highway and have room to pass him. Gah! It just really annoys me when people do this.

[blas]

Those people are one-uppers.

It's effing dangerous to do that. I understand the headaches of slow mergers, I really, really, really do, but at the same time, I can't fathom why people think veering off and rocketing away, not leaving proper room for everyone else to get in, is a good idea.

[AtDIelement]

All it takes is two people to try and do it at once.

[MadMike]

My wife's first car accident may have been because of this same type of situation. I wasn't with her, and even she's not sure what happened. She was trying to merge onto the highway, and she swears up and down it was clear when she started. But somehow she ended up getting sideswiped by a tractor trailer. We think that he may have decided to switch lanes as she was trying to get on, but no one's really sure.

Sadly, since no one was sure what happened, the insurance company ruled the accident to be her fault.