Here is the scene – you are on a nice trip with your family (or just on your way to work, like me) cruising down the highway and you cross a beautiful river…ahh, the Hudson River. You cross the Newburgh-Beacon bridge to stumble upon the toll booths that are on the Beacon side of the river. You find a good lane and slide into it…You wait until it’s your turn to pay your toll, or slowly glide through EZ Pass. What a peaceful day. Once payment is made…WHAM! You hear the screeching of tires and car engines revving up to 9,000RPM. You see cars shooting out of the holeshot like bats out of hell. You smell exhaust like you never have before. You wonder what the hell is going on. Just on the other side of the booths was a nice laid-back cruise and on this side is alike a race to save your life.
I experience this almost every day I drive to work. Just the other day, there were two drivers, pushing their cars to do 0-60 in about 2.3 seconds, trying to pass a semi truck in the fast lane. Now remember, there are about 10 lanes merging into 2, so you need to be slightly…just slightly respectful to other drivers. These 2 cars pushed themselves so far up the rear of this semi truck they both almost crashed into the highway divider…by themselves. There was no other condition that caused their close accident.
My question is this – What the hell is going on? What is the rush? As I cruise slowly on purpose, I see the most aggravated looks on these people’s faces trying to get ahead. I think some of them would really kill you and not care, just to get in front of you. I love it when they whiz by you and then are forced to stop behind the car that was right in front of you. They have to feel stupid.
I really try to drive slowly out of the toll booth, but sometimes I slip. Yesterday, I was almost at the end of the merge and in my lane when this lady tries to fly up behind me and pass me on the left. Now, this really aggravated me. She got past, so I gunned it and went around her on the right. Once around her, I cut sharply to the left to land right in front of her. She had no idea what was going on, because she didn’t even know she was being rude.
I really hate it when adults have to discipline other adults.
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That story reminds me of another incident that happend to me, this time on the Newburgh side of the bridge. Some young child in, what goes for a souped up car these days (a honda civic) came flying past me on the right and cut in front of me, causing me to slam on my breaks. Well, that was enough of that, I pulled around him in the left lane and rolled down my passenger window. I then not so politely asked him what his problem was. He stated that he didn’t see me. I signalled my understanding of his statement with the one finger salute. Then proceded to invite him to pull over, so we could discuss the problem in more detail. Unfortunetly, the young man declined, and in fact slowed down to a safe speed and fell in behind me. All is well that ends well.
I’ve almost been hit a number of times by those people, I don’t get what their problem is either. It’s not like accelerating is going to get them anywhere faster since they only catch up with traffic and wind up stuck behind it anyhow. Maybe they feel the need to rush ahead as a way to compensate for their own insecurities?
My boyfriend actually installed a PA system in his car. I don’t know if it’s legal or not, but he uses it to publicly berate and humiliate bad drivers. It’s pretty fun and something that may be worth looking into.