To my driving friends (in general)

Dear driving friends,

First let me clarify: I don't mean friends of mine that drive.  I mean very temporary friends that I make in other cars while I am driving.  People going about the same speed as me, who are equally polite to people getting around them, who know how to make other people get out of their way, and who have the sense to slow from 80 to 75 if the limit ducks some.  Driving friends, I like you.  The more dependable ones of you make it easy for me to keep my speed since you actually use your cruise control (I'm so afraid of breaking mine I never use it), and the less dependable ones of you are fun to pass and get passed by.  I hang with you past groups of people going slowly, to the right while crazy people doing 90 pass us, a little slower when we see cops--you are what makes driving rewarding.  I get to know what to expect from you.  I know if you're going to be the type who waits patiently behind me as I try to get someone out of our way, and I know if you'll be unreasonable and tailgate me as if I'm the problem when we've been driving together for an hour going the same speed.  I start to respect you if I see you making decisions like I would.  You keep me awake since I'm kind of keeping tabs on you, and you make me a little sad when you finally exit.  When I exit, I always try to do so in front of you, and I tap the brakes a couple times so you know just how much I cared about you.  These transient friendships make a boring drive a more interesting one, and so I thank you for them.

Your driving friend,
Allison

Idiots changing lanes and feeling cool about it

All right all right.  We can all agree that changing lanes is more fun than going in a straight line.  But let's also agree not to unnecessarily endanger the lives of others by darting from left lane to 2nd-to-left lane and back in heavy traffic going a relatively uniform speed (at least in these lanes) for gains of a car length.  I can see that you're proud of that 90's Olds and you want to show off its enviable power and agility.  I can see that you want people to look at you and think, "Wow, I wish I could do that!"  But the reality is that people think your Olds is shit, people think you are shit, and people are afraid for their lives.  Unless your wife is in labor or you have an urgent gunshot wound (an urgent one mind you--not this "shot in the hand" crap), there is no reason to be swerving around people and acting like an ass.

My only advice for dealing with these folks is to get the hell out of their way.  Sure, that reinforces the behavior, but it doesn't kill me in the process of its correction.  Early in driving, when I drove on the highway only occasionally and it wasn't a high enough fraction of my time to actually start thinking about "Hey I'm gonna be on the highway for six hours tonight, that's a lot of exposure to potential death," I would put these people in their place and cut them off and keep them from getting in front of me.  Now, I brake and let them in, and I decrease my speed until they get a good five cars away.  Stopping distance isn't usually something I'm freaky about (I don't really do the three-second rule or anything), but if I think the probability of a wreck happening in front of me is greater than 10% I want those three seconds in front of me and the cars behind me can go to hell.

Nearly getting lane-changed into and doing nothing intelligent about it

The culprit here is a blue car, and me.  You would think I would recall the make and model of the car, since that's what my brain should be encoding during a high-stress event, but I don't.  It was driven by a middle-aged, maybe a little older, couple.  In the farthest left lane, going 75.  Now that's nice, but everyone else wants to do at least 80 (me) or 85.  Cars back up behind the blue car.  People are passing on the right, passing on the right, and because I'm an asshole, I go with the flow and start to pass on the right.  But.  The car in front of me can't get over into the left lane yet, and so I'm stuck next to the blue car.  Right in the blind spot (just where I want to be, right?).  There's a semi beside me.  Blue car starts drifting towards my lane while signaling right.  We pass the semi.  I drift towards the right side of my lane and start looking frantically at the lady in the passenger seat of the blue car.  I yell, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?  WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?  WHAT THE FUCK?" and drift further to the right portion of my lane.  I don't honk, I don't really brake, I just yell.  That's the stupid part.  The lady looks over at me, suddenly looks as terrified as I am, and turns to the driver, who then jerks back into his lane.  I accelerate out of there, feeling like an idiot.  The only thing I can imagine that happened was that they weren't listening to any music and they actually heard me yelling through the car.  Which is pretty funny.  But that makes me feel bad because I was yelling at these respectable older folks who had every reason to blindly crash into me.  So lesson of this near crash situation is:

Use your horn.  Use your brakes.  Accelerate forward, out of the blind spot.  Don't just ride the right side of your lane screaming obscenities at respectable people.  Not a solution unless they hear you--and then it's embarrassing.

2000-ish silver Civic

Dear 2000-ish silver Civic,

You were my first really interesting driving story...at least the first I cared to share with anyone.  Driven by a skinny high school boy with a buzz cut?  Check.  Sporting a tacky aftermarket spoiler that's a foot tall?  Check.  Suddenly belligerent after I pass you looking at you, laughing at your spoiler?  Check, but I probably had something to do with that.

Listen honey.  Getting out of my way and then tailgating me when I'm going 80 and you were previously going 75 just isn't believable.  And then, when I kindly lane over, you hover next to me, window to window, shifting from 5th to 4th.  Yes I hear that engine.  Let me check...oh okay, after checking MSN Autos it appears you have 115hp.  Are you aware that I have 150?  Are you aware that that tacky spoiler does not magically add 35hp to your car?  Are you aware that you're not in an Si?  If you were I might have been intimidated instead of entertained.  But this is ridiculous.  I realize your car is lighter than mine, and you probably have a chip installed, but I would be happy to meet you at a track sometime if you're paying.  I laughed an apology for not wanting to street race at 10pm around semis, braked, and tried to get behind you...but you were braking too?  Oh this is too much.  When I lane changed to the right of a semi, I knew you would assume I was racing you on the other side, and you sped up according to plan.  I lagged behind, got back in the left lane where I wanted to be, and unfortunately lost you in standstill traffic that happened a couple miles up.  I've always wondered if I'll ever see you again.  I look for that spoiler, roof-height on the back of a Civic that is struggling to carry it.  I haven't seen it in two or three months of driving, which means two things: I haven't seen you again, and statistically it is probable that you are the only idiot who has this.  2000-ish silver Civic, I truly hope we meet again.  You were the highlight of that six hour drive.

Still can't believe that spoiler,
Allison

Intro/statement of purpose

So I'm a 21-year-old college student, and I drive six hours back and forth in a straight line on I-85 to see my hubby each week (count it: 12 hours a week).  I've already driven this at least 20 times and so I have a lot of interesting experiences and impressions to share with people who maybe don't drive 12 hours a week on the highway but want to laugh at me since I do.  I plan on posting little letters to cars/drivers I've encountered, detailing experiences of interest to folks (e.g. near crashes, how I avoided them or just completely failed to react), and basically whatever else cool or dumb that happens over the course of these drives.  Just for background, I currently drive a '98 Altima stick with 181000 miles on it (typically over the speed limit).  Her name is Birdy.  I think of myself as a courteous driver--I change lanes over if a semi is threatening someone merging in, I try to make a point not to tailgate, I try to get over early when there's an accident or something stopping the lefthand lanes (kind of dumb I guess), I switch lanes over from the farthest right if someone is stopped on the side...you get the idea.   As you'll learn, I have also done many many stupid things such as: tailing a slow car on the on-ramp and then getting onto the highway at 45 and nearly dying, nearly getting lane-changed into and doing nothing intelligent about it, passing a semi on the right hand side (those were the early days), and tailing a car in front of me closer than I would have parked (for only a few seconds, but that was really stupid).

If this is something I stick with, and not some random account I forget the username and password to, I will probably be updating it about twice weekly (once by Friday, once by Monday) since these drives take place during the afternoon/night on Thursday and during the night (read 7pm-1am) Sunday.  Early on I'll probably be remembering random things I haven't yet posted and posting them at random times during the week when I don't want to do productive things like read for class.  Good luck reading this.  I know a little about cars but not enough to be impressive, some cool things happen to me and some things that I think are cool but are actually boring, and I also anticipate making pointless posts even if nothing happens.  Everyone get excited.