Drivers Who Preempt Your Freeway Space

Roberts comments on those who cut in and preempt her freeway spacing, wishing bad cess to their assured comeuppance, brings forth an interesting aspect of the driving task and the attitudes engendered.

There tends to be a proprietary, dog-in-a-manger feeling about that space ahead in your lane and intruders arouse unkind sentiments, which, if you are not of a philosophical bent, may cause you to let your guard down. Lapses of just a moment can result in a great deal of mischief.

Should you succumb to the urge to communicate your annoyance to the “offender,” then you abandon your role of responsibility for the safe passage of the “community of persons in transit” in the midst of which you “reside.” The love of thy neighbor, hard as it is to imagine, belongs out there on the freeway too.

Now comes a little trick you might embrace: Think of all the stupid, ignorant, inconsiderate, incompetent and, yes, aggressive behavior as the normal state of things out there and pretend you aren’t bothered a bit. Keep a low profile and manageable blood pressure in the full knowledge that the bulk of drivers know not what they do a good deal of the time, and there are more of the same being spawned daily. Remember, mad and sad tend to be “boom” companions on a highway.

Need I mention that the cut-in and abrupt slow-down maneuver has been used to involve the unwary in set-up rear-end collisions? Keep your guard up and your ire down. Don’t get jangled in the traffic jungle.

THOMAS J. SULLIVAN

Pasadena