Monday, February 17, 2014

Road Revenge? Or Road Rage?

Everyday driving into the office there is an exit off the interstate that just drives me nuts.  The area I'm talking about is I-10 and Kolb, which is on my way to the IBM office.  I'll be driving north up Kolb Rd and people from the east will be exiting the I-10 and trying to turn north onto Kolb as well.  In their defense, it's a little hard to judge the speed of incoming traffic on Kolb since you can barely see past the top of the hill where I am coming from, and it may appear that cars are coming in slower than they really are.  Nonetheless, people still try and turn right onto the road and into my lane as I'm going near 55 MPH.  This is where the Road Rage/Revenge begins...

I'll be driving straight in the right lane, getting ready to make my eventual right onto IBM Rd.  I clearly have the right of way and should not have to change my speed to allow incoming traffic.  They must yield to me, however, so many do not.  Kolb is a 2-lane road and I feel if you're going to try and turn on Kolb with a fast car coming behind you, you should at least go to the left lane and get out of my way if you can't get to my speed in time.  You'd be surprised how many people don't do this though, they insist on staying in the right lane.  Not only that, they drive fucking shitty ass cars with no acceleration...we're talking 0-60 in like 10 seconds.  At this point I'm always presented with two options:
A) Do I stay in the right lane and slow down to their speed so I can make my eventual right turn?
B) Do I switch to the left lane and pass them, cut them off and make my eventual right turn?

The answer I almost always choose is B.  However, because I'm pissed off at them for cutting me off in the first place, I will usually slow down to almost a complete stop before taking that right turn on IBM Rd.  This forces them to either slow down as well or go around me. :D Here is a map of what everything looks like:

This exit has bothered me so much that I've actually contemplated making a sign that reads "Traffic on Kolb may be faster than it appears. Please yield for existing traffic." and staking it into the ground for all the people trying to make a right onto Kolb.  Anyway, I'm not sure if this classifies as Road Revenge or Road Rage, what do you think?