Raging lanes – A Wee Bleether

We’re not so different, you and me.

Age, race, political affiliation-—mere superficial distractions from our true nature. Ultimately, there are only two types of people: the people who move into the merge lane prudently and the speed racers who cut that line to get ahead.

Is there anything more stressful than when these two groups collide—metaphorically speaking, of course—at temporary road construction lane mergers?

Why should they get to cut the line, civic-minded drivers ask themselves. After all, they’ve been inching along patiently for 10 minutes while one city slicker after another zips right up to the merge point and jousts his way in front of an overly polite minivan mom or a ponderous big rig.

I think traffic engineers design and organize road construction projects on the absurd premise that society—when suddenly faced with merging mayhem—will just sort itself into prudent order, patient mergers finding spontaneous harmony with impatient monsters.

“I’m a slow-lane girl—I hate those people,” my wife recently offered. The good daughter of a scientist, she’s actually studied the matter informally, searching for a pattern among the offenders. Are pickup trucks the primary offenders? SUVs?

“There’s no pattern at all,” she lamented. “There’s just no way to tell.”

Usually, the civic-mindedness of patient drivers (let’s call them the “good” people) balances the aggression and intent of drivers in the faster lane (we’ll call them the “evil” people). But things get interesting when you get the wild card: the patient driver who’s unfamiliar with the construction zone and suddenly finds himself in the “make room for me, chump” lane. We’re talking cosmic imbalance.

Or, even worse is when an aggressor stumbles into the merge lane too early. In seconds this driver explodes in rage and anxiety, like a bank bag dye pack.

I’m probably a fast-lane guy at heart, but in the morning I just don’t have the stomach for automotive aggression or the silent, searing stares of the aggrieved. I sometimes get an urge to hop into the fast lane and just park myself next to my old spot, my turn signal on, artificially stanching the fast lane’s flow. Oh, if only life were so sweet.

But I have actually seen it happen, and it was a thing of beauty.

Interstate 10 was under interminable construction, and a fed-up 18-wheel truck driver broke the slow-lane chains of obedience and parked his hulking rig in the fast lane. It brought elation to motorists in the slow lane, not to mention order to the chaotic merge. I never did get to thank that trucker, but he was my hero.

Maybe it would be better if merging lanes would merge into a new lane that straddles them with a temporary central lane. Neither lane would have all the power, and the aggressive and the patient would be randomly mixed together in a good old-fashioned take-turns affair.

One thing’s for sure: as long as we enjoy growth here in Baton Rouge, we’ll be faced with lane-merge anxiety. Guess we’ll have to just grin and bear it—and avoid eye contact whenever possible.