Today, on the ride in to work, things have been much more annoying!
First, on a street in Brandon, this car stops in the road with his right turn signal on. I’m fairly close behind him, but nobody is behind me. As I come to a complete stop, I realize that they have stopped to ‘courteously’ allow the person sitting at the stop sign to pull out into non-existent traffic. This jerk has delayed everyone in order to ignore traffic laws and make themselves feel ‘nice.’ What an asshole.
Then, on the same street, a car pulls out in front of me, forcing me to apply my brakes firmly and downshift. Still nobody behind me. They proceed to slowly go up one block and turn left.
Both of those drivers got a ‘you’re number one’ signal from me. Although I’m sure neither one comprehended what they had done to deserve it.
On the interstate, this car pulls into my lane in front of me, going slower that I was. I get into the left lane (of three lanes) and get up to where my front wheel is aligned with their front door – and they take off. So, I move back over into the middle lane. I “catch up” to this vehicle three more times before my exit.
Closer to my exit, I run into the worst event on the interstate – all three lanes at least three vehicles deep, all going almost the exact same speed. Come on, people!! If the car to your right is going almost the same speed as you are – SPEED UP! If the car to your left is going almost the same speed as you are – SLOW DOWN! When you are past them, if you want to go the speed you were going, get behind or in front of them and THEN match speeds, but DO NOT get beside someone on the interstate and match their speed. If you are not past them in under 30 seconds, you are blocking traffic. MOVE.
At my exit – a two lane exit only that merges to one lane into a big curve – there is a sporty blue car with LED turn signals that do a progression in the direction of the turn… six or seven lights that go on one at at time to simulate motion… with the tag JON4FUN driving slow in the right lane. Half of a car length behind him, but in the left lane, is an SUV from Louisiana driving the SAME SPEED as the blue car, but not moving over, preventing me from passing either one. Normally, I shift down to fifth gear to go into the curve and speed up to around fifty five or sixty in the curve. These jerks are going much slower than the usual slow traffic. I have to shift down to fourth gear and go around forty miles per hour through the curve. If the car in the right lane in front of you is going the same speed you are, you are blocking traffic – MOVE OVER into that lane!
In good travel news, the city of Jackson had a crew paint a white line through an intersection with two turn lanes where people in the left hand lane were very often turning into the right hand lane. I’m sure there were accidents and I know there were lots of close calls. I’ve had at least four close calls there myself in the last couple years where people in the left lane just came over into my lane in the turn. I’m not sure what they were thinking. There are two lanes to turn, two green arrow turn signals, two lanes going into the tunnel, but somehow they just don’t comprehend why they couldn’t turn from the left lane and get into the right lane in the turn. I even have a video where a guy cuts me off in that turn.
UPDATE: This morning, I thought that I would set up my video camera to document the ride in to work – so I did. It is not very good quality as I don’t think it was ever meant to work on a motorcycle at 70mph. Still, it takes video. The ride in this morning was astonishingly easy and trouble free. No bad drivers at all, just some average drivers and maybe a couple below average. I even made all the traffic lights – all green or turned as soon as I stopped. It was amazing! Boring video, but great trip to work!