Right of way

I went to a client's today to drop off a key fob. I've been trying not to drive very much as of late, given the price of gas and, well, the seriously NOT fuel efficient nature of my vehicle. Eight cylinders will do that to you, I think. (But, oh, boy, is that car fun to drive!)

On my way to the client's, I stopped by to pick up lunch. Two birds, one stone, that sort of thing. On my way down El Camino, however, I was nearly in an accident, as another driver wasn't paying attention and nearly sideswiped my car. I noticed, after my heart stopped thumping loudly in my chest, that I had accelerated out of danger.

That's very much my way of avoiding danger in my car: I accelerate away from it. Kris is very much the opposite: he brakes hard to avoid an accident. I think the difference comes from either learning to drive (essentially, for the most part, and certainly during the formative years) in Los Angeles, and my motorcycle riding training. The instructor in the CC Riders Foundation class explicitly told us, as motorcycle riders, braking hard was going to put us more in harms way than accelerating away, so accelerate away from the danger.

He also told us that you can't always enforce your right of way on a bike. John Schmidt explained it as, "In a car, when you drive, you're in danger of killing everyone else. On a motorcycle, with everyone else in a car, you're in danger of killing yourself."

Yet, this right of way is something I'm particularly likely to enforce if it's mine. If it's my turn to go at a four-way stop, I go. If I'm in a lane that's merging, your lane goes, my lane goes, your lane goes, my lane goes: it's called zippering and we alternate who goes next. If you don't alternate, I won't let you in. If the light has turned green, I'll start driving forward into the intersection, even if you think it's okay to run that red stoplight and blast through that intersection. Yes, it's my responsibility to avoid an accident, and I certainly will do everything I can, but I will enforce my right of way.

This also means giving right-of-way when it's not mine. If you have your turn signal on and it's gone more than two blinks, and you're trying to get into my lane, I'm going to let you. This assumes, of course, that you haven't been an asshole and deliberately PASSED me, instead of merging behind me in the half mile of OPEN LANE behind me. Then, I won't, because you're a dick and you DON'T have right of way at that point. Asshole.

So, I was pondering this whole driving thing on the drive back from the clients, wondering why giving up right-of-way, when it's not yours, is so difficult.

As I was pondering this, I merged onto the 101 heading north. As I began my merge, I looked to see what cars were approaching. One car was in the lane I was going to merge into, but far enough back, going slowly enough, that a normal acceleration was fine. I didn't have to gun the engine to merge safely. Great. I accelerated like a normal person.

As the dotted line on the freeway ended, and my lane started to angle over into the slow lane on the freeway, I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye to the left.

Turns out, the driver in the car I had seen back in the lane didn't like the idea of my merging in front of him, even though I was going 65 by the time I began the merge. No, he didn't like that idea one bit, and decided that accelerating hard to be in front of me was the best choice.

Now, how in the hell he thought this was a good idea, I have no clue. He could have continued his previous speed, and I would have merged in front of him, and moved over one lane, as the slow lane because an exit-only lane a half mile up. He could have continued unabated, without wasting gas on the idiotic acceleration he had just done.

Instead, all he had managed to do was 1. catch up to the car in the second lane, 2. catch up to me in the merge lane, 3. not pass either of us, and 4. put all of us in danger with his decision.

I dropped two gears, jammed on the gas, and accelerated away from the accident-waiting-to-happen.

But not without a lot of heart-thumping. And a lot of annoyance.

I probably lost 2-3 miles of gas accelerating away from the moron who wanted the right-of-way, when it wasn't his to have.

AND I was even trying to drive calmly that day.

See what I get for my trouble?