And the Envelope, Please . . .

Announcing the winners of the ROYAL BONEHEADED EEJITS AWARD:

The nincompoops who drive in the left lane of the freeway at the same speed as those driving in the middle or the right lanes of the freeway.

I write my blogs in my head while I drive, and this one has been screaming to be published for awhile now. At least once a week I travel 45 miles to see my dad, and 80% of it is on the highway. There are some real problem drivers out there, and these are some of the worst!

Any DOT driving handbook clearly states that the far left lane of the highway is specifically designated as the PASSING lane. This means it is to be used for going around another vehicle. It is not intended for casual cruising just because it has the fewest number of cars in it. It is not intended to be used when your cruise control is set to one mph faster than that of the guy in the middle. It is for people who are going faster than the other vehicles and who need to get around them! For cruise controllers, this may mean accelerating around the guy at the 65 mph speed and slowing back down to your 66 mph when you return to the middle lane! Is this a particularly difficult concept to understand?

Or are these nimrods just selfish? There are those who claim that they are doing other drivers a favor by keeping them from getting a ticket for going over the speed limt. To these butterbrains, I say, "Stop playing my mama, and just get outta the way!"

In reality these dimwits are highway hazards. Because they insist on plugging up the passing lane, faster drivers are forced to play the "lane change" game, sometimes having to travel all the way to the far right lane to get ahead. Then they have to navigate back again. Weaving in and out of traffic is not safe under any circumstances. This is why the highway engineers designed PASSING LANES! The road signs say "Slower traffic stay to the right." Can these people not read?

I'd like to see tickets given to people who do this. We've been on trips before and become stuck in traffic moving at a snail's pace. We naturally assumed there was an accident up ahead that had a lane or lanes blocked. Come to find out, after inching along for mile after mile, that it was nothing more than a looneytoon who was driving in the far left lane at the same speed as everyone else, and no one could get around him! Don't they realize that traffic backs up way behind them when they do this?

I don't care what the speed limit signs say. More often than not, the flow of traffic on any given three-lane or larger highway in the United States is traveling at 75 mph. At least. That is until they reach the bozo who brings it all to a halt because he plugs up the left lane. An interesting survey would contain the following questions: How fast do you actually drive on a highway? How fast would you like to drive? I daresay 75% of the answers would NOT be 60 mph! Give the pluggers a ticket and leave the people driving 85, but who are keeping very safe distances away from anyone else, alone. People who are not comfortable driving over 60 can stay in the right lane or the middle lane. Those needing to pass can do so and return to the middle lane until the next time they need to pass. This will work because no one will be driving 65 in the left lane!

I'd like someone to invent flip-up signs that read backwards on the front of the car and forwards on the rear of the car. We could flip up a sign on the front that says, "To the right, please" when we come up behind one of these dumbkopfs. Then we could flip up one on the back that says, "Get off of my bumper, please" when another kind of eejit tailgates. Tailgaters might do well to look beyond the car ahead and see if some air-for-brain is slowing everybody down. Then we could have a third sign for general purposes that says, "Have you lost your mind?"

And that's how I see it.

Oh. The prize for the ROYAL BONEHEADED EEJITS AWARD? This time it's the opportunity to drive a brand new 2005 Ferrari for 500 miles, up a steep grade, while sandwiched in the far right lane between two big rigs that are each heavily laden with concrete and steel, and with a myopic octogenerian in a 1955 Ford Fairlane on the left in the middle lane. An added bonus is getting to watch the rest of the traffic cruising on by, free and clear, in the far left (passing) lane.