Some Re-Education Is Needed

Lately, it seems like my commute to and from work is becoming more and more hazardous to my health. The driving population of Syracuse is getting crazier and crazier, and nothing seems to be getting done about this. A recent series of letters to the Sub-Standard... errrrr, Post-Standard touching on the propriety of "right on red" is a good start, but I think we need to start from the ground up. A few years ago I created what I called the "Fool-Proof Road Rage Quiz"; if you'd like to read it, just click here. Unfortunately, in light of the fact that some of these drivers today apparently got their drivers licenses from a cereal box, I think I need to dumb things down for them. The following is a list of things that drivers will see in their everyday commute and what they mean, specifically what they mean and what they DON'T mean...

#1: The "MERGE" sign on an on-ramp

What it means: if you are in traffic already, you are to allow the cars on the on-ramp to merge in an orderly fashion... this can be done by taking turns between the car in traffic and the car from the on-ramp or, if it's available, by moving your car to the next lane over to allow the car on the on-ramp to merge easily

What it DOESN'T mean: if you are in traffic already, you stay in your lane, not giving an inch to the car trying to merge and basically saying, "I'm here already, deal with it"... if you are coming up the on-ramp, you essentially play "chicken" with the car already in traffic until either he lets you in or you have to slam on the brakes to avoid ending up in the guardrail

#2: The "YIELD" sign on an on-ramp

What it means: if you are on the on-ramp, you have to stop and let the cars in traffic go by so they can either continue at a safe speed or in some cases, move over into your lane to exit the highway

What it DOESN'T mean: the same thing as "MERGE"... as in you don't stop, you crawl along the off/on-ramp until you either see a small opening and cut someone off, you stop in the now-off-ramp and snarl traffic, or you keep going all the way into the shoulder, thus running the risk of hitting someone from the next on-ramp

#3: A red light

What it means: you stop... and if you are able, you can turn right

What it DOESN'T mean: you don't stop because the last car ran it so you can too... or you see you can make a right turn and you slow into your turn but you don't actually stop... or you wedge yourself onto the right side of the lane or the shoulder and you stick yourself out into traffic so you can see around the guy next to you to plan your right turn

#4: The "No Turn on Red" sign

What it means: when you come to a red light with this sign, you STOP and you wait until the light turns green to make your right turn

What it DOESN'T mean: you do everything you would do for a normal red light when you don't know what it means...

And I really wish I didn't have to go this far but I do...

#5: The solid white line on the right side of the road

What it means: that is the SHOULDER... it is only to be used to pull over in the event of an emergency or, where applicable, to park

What it DOESN'T mean: it's another lane, to be used for going around someone waiting to make a left turn against oncoming traffic... which sometimes may also be about to turn left...

I know this isn't going to change a thing and people won't suddenly become wiser because I devoted this space to such material... but god knows the police don't enforce things like this... they're too busy pulling people over for... other things... So I sometimes feel it necessary to enforce it myself. For example, if a guy violates #2, I don't let him cut me off... which usually results in a horn being blown and a finger being flipped. When I get to a place where I am going to turn left, I intentionally move my car over just enough to the right so the guy who wants to pass me on the shoulder can't... well, not without rolling his SUV into a ditch anyway. When I get to a red light, I stop... in my lane... as in the center of my lane.

One of these days, I'll make such an attempt to keep everything around me safe... and I'll probably get killed by some overaggressive driver who decided to take his misinterpretation of the rules WAY too far over the edge. You can try to tell me otherwise but I don't think I'll be able to hear you, as my ears are still ringing from the guy beeping the horn behind me this morning because I actually approached #3 correctly...