Okay, here it is. In an attempt to relieve some of my daily driving stress, I am constructing a new page on what happens every day that I'm driving on the road. I am going step by step over the very points in each part of the road(s) that people regularly P Me Off (PMO) at.

Here is where I take a right out of my apartment complex, and this is the first light I come to. As you see, the left lane is a left turn only lane, so if you want to go straight you should be in the right lane. People here disregard that, so they go straight in the left lane. This is fine by me, though I wouldn't do it. After the light, the road is still two lanes, so I don't know why it's left turn only in the first place..

Anyway, what ticks me off, is if there is someone who legitimately wants to turn left there, and there is traffic coming the other way they can't. Because of this, the people who generally are in a hurry to get in front of everybody (and go straight in this lane) get stuck behind the left-turner. Since this sort of driver is inconsiderate, greedy, and rude they decide that they can't wait behind the person, but instead swoop over into the right lane regardless if there's a car there. I haven't seen an accident there yet. I have avoided many.

Here is where you would continue to go straight from the first light, and through a second and third. That ramp coming off of there goes to I-395, both North and South. So you can imagine how many people are in the right lane going to get off there. And you can also imagine how many people want to get past that line of cars and cut in front just before the ramp.

I only have a problem with people that drive like that when they try to force an opening, causing people to slow down. But this does not cause near-accidents. What causes near accidents is when the person is unsuccessful at forcing a hole and assumes that everybody in the right lane is getting onto the interstate, and they treat their left lane like a second right turn lane (as there is enough room on the ramp for two cars to be side by side). So, if they happen to make a right from there and the person they are next to wants to go straight, an accident will happen. I've only seen one incident where an accident almost happened (unfortunately most people do turn right), and it was bad. The van that was going straight ended up in the grass area and slid sideways to avoid the jerk.

Okay. This one is a simple thing, that happens at every single merging lane in this area. I don't know why. What happens is the person will wait until last minute to merge, even if there are gaps available when they first get on. They pass those up, in order to get in front of as many cars as possible, and force a hole at last minute.. thus causing everyone on the Interstate to slam on their brakes (and not only the right lane, because people from there will not want to slow down and swoop over to the left, causing them to slow down as well).

There have been many times where I'm moving over into a gap, and the person behind me is on my ass, and as soon as I'm out of their way they floor it (usually an SUV) only to slam on their brakes to the line of cars now in front of them trying to merge. By the time I pass the SUV, he's still in the merging lane, and I'm doing 20mph in the middle lane.

Another thing that ticks me off is people don't want to accelerate to merge. Cutting someone off at 30mph, when they are doing 55mph happens a lot. Why can't people learn to drive?

This is a simple little thing.. This is the exit to Columbia Pike. which later splits off in three directions.. So it's a busy exit. Traffic doesn't back up ON the exit, but it does back up FOR the exit.. Mainly because everybody is trying to get in front of everybody.. And will even try to cut across from the far left lane just - to - get - in - front - of - one - more - car. So it backs up traffic overall.... Irritating.

This is another major flaw in the Interstate system.. On the right is a ramp that starts out as two lanes.. then suddenly converges into one, which has to merge onto I-395 (North). This creates a 'bumper-to-bumper' effect because of so many cars coming from the tons of high rise apartment complexes in that area, all trying to merge into each other.. and by the time they are ready to get on the interstate, there's no space for comfort. On top of this, most of them want to take the express lane and must cross many, many lanes of traffic to do so. One time someone cut me off (though I didn't mind it.. I was only going 10 mph) and the traffic that was in front of me kept going.. The person that cut me off immediately tried getting over to the left (stopped) lane.. blocking my progress. This left the lane in front of me clear, and I saw no less than five cars move over into my lane in front of me at the same time. :)

This PMO isn't really the drivers fault, as it's set up really bad. If I had my way, I'd put up a concrete barrier on all of the solid white lines...

The part that does aggravate me the most, is the typical D.C. driver that suddenly realizes they don't want to take the exit, and gets back on to the interstate at last minute, doing a considerably lower speed than the flow of traffic.