Pickles & Dimes

Volume 4: Merging When Your Lane Ends

With summer comes construction. With construction comes lane closures. With lane closures comes asshelmets.

 
Take this stretch of freeway for instance (once again, drawn to scale). See how there’s three lanes of traffic, all headed in the same direction? See the groan-inducing orange sign that smugly proclaims: RIGHT LANE CLOSED AHEAD?

Now you and me, being normal people (and non-asshelmets), would probably take the first good opportunity to merge into the nearest lane. To avoid the hassle.

Because we’re nice that way.

Sometimes, however, people won’t let you in when you wish to merge. So you ride it out in the right lane with your turn signal blink-blink-blinking until someone finally takes pity on you and lets you in. Not the ideal result, but sometimes unavoidable.

However, when asshelmets see the lane closure sign, they laugh heartily, because that sign doesn’t apply to them, OH LORDS NO. They feel that since the lane is still open, they don’t have to merge.

So they continue speeding along in the right lane – the very lane that ends in 400 feet – and wait until the last possible second to run the nose of their giant HemiHummerTruckSUV™ into the left lane, like a splinter in a giant logjam of traffic, forcing all the people who had already merged and were actually moving again to stop. While they do this, they chortle in their victory – a “victory” that has resulted in acquiring THREE whole car lengths of freeway position.

What does this mean? It means they are an asshelmet. A certified asshelmet (or “CA,” if you will).

One way to deal with CAs is to have an unspoken agreement with the vehicle behind you. This agreement entails moving your vehicle over into the right lane, effectively blocking CAs from going to the end, thereby forcing them to merge much earlier than they would like, while also allowing for a continuous flow of traffic. The car behind you then holds up his part of the bargain by keeping his distance so that you can merge back into your lane when needed.

The best part of this deal is when your co-conspirator is a semi that can block legions of CAs from advancing past its diesel-powered bulk. When this happens, you may witness cheering and happy honking and lots of “˜HA HA!s’ at the CA’s expense. Feel free to take part, for this rare phenomenon is known as “Awesome” and/or “Sweet, sweet justice.”

However, because CAs are angry, self-absorbed tools, they will often drive up onto the shoulder to go around you AND still have the gall to give you the finger in the process. Because they believe it’s YOUR FAULT that they are an asshelmet.

 
This is where you should probably suck it up and be the better person, because obviously, the CA is a total dick.

And because the Dashboard LAZER™ (Large Automatic Zapper to Eliminate Road-Hazards) isn’t perfected yet.

Lesson of the Day: Merge as soon as possible, lest my Dashboard Lazer pulverize your asshelmet.