Traffic work makes drivers obey the urge to merge

It’s getting close to our spring transition season. We know that for a number of reasons. First and foremost is that every road, path, byway, sidewalk and turnpike is under construction. Sometimes the department of transportation just puts out signs around this time of year saying that there is a construction zone ahead; you know, just for the heck of it. Nothing is really going on except the guys back at the office are doubled over laughing, holding their sides because of the prank. Road transition is always their version of the office Christmas party.

I was traveling north to another state last week. The northern part of the county seemed to be where a lot of work was going on; the whole place looked like an erector set project built by someone in a lunatic asylum. I can tell you I had an extreme case of seasickness from all the new rotaries that obviously were going nowhere, just around and around. At one point, I passed pieces of cheese in the road, I suppose as an incentive for what was thought of as a rat in a maze. Of course, we love our DelDOT, but why do we have traffic stretching into another ZIP code and squeezed into one lane all because of a single orange cone left out in the road?

Merge signs were posted every couple of feet. This is because highway and transportation departments know the one thing American drivers hate is to merge. Motorists would rather drive across a border to another country before they let someone in their lane; it’s one of the reasons I always carry my passport with me, even if I’m just going to the store. Before you know it, you could find yourself heading for the city of Toronto to make a point.

I know some have taken extreme measures and simply rented news reporter helicopters to fly them out after a couple hours of sitting on the New Jersey Turnpike. Hey, I’ve seen them on top of cars waving distress flags in Japanese.

It’s not that most people aren’t sympathetic to other drivers who happen to get in that lane that eventually comes to a close. Well, actually, that’s not true; they really aren’t sympathetic, mostly because their brother-in-law used to work for the department of transportation before he was indicted on federal corruption charges, and they really have always despised their brother-in-law. OK, maybe that’s just my family.

Anyway, the thing drivers fear the most is that if you let one person in line, then everyone else wants in, so you have to hold firm. You’ll have drivers waving and begging, throwing crutches and wheelchairs out the window as they inch in slowly. Apparently they’ve done this commute before. And then before you know it, that driver is letting the equivalent of the population of Des Moines, Iowa, in front of them.

But we are a people who don’t forget, unless of course that memory involves where we parked our car. We know where these people live, where their children live and where their children’s children live.

We know it’s traffic transition time just by the sheer volume of vehicles on the road. There are a lot more cars sporting peace and vegan stickers on the back, too, but frankly, I don’t care what you eat after following your vehicle for a couple hundred miles, and to tell you the truth, I could eat a leftover Christmas yule log at this point.

The other day a car passed me doing about 100 miles per hour. I could tell at one time it was a convertible just by the teeth marks left on the surviving canvas. The driver had one arm slung over pieces of foam from a distressed headrest. And he was wearing the front airbag. I let him in. After all, it was a rehearsal for upcoming summer traffic. Stay safe.