Traffic and the idiots that we are

Well we do get emotional, don't we? We aren't robots, after all. But why do we get so protective about our space on the road? When we merge lanes it's done either (a) politely, one on one like a zipper or (b) ignorantly, as in 'none-shall-get-ahead-of-me'. Time saved by bullying one driver out of your way? Negligible. Aggro caused? Lots. My estimate? 30% are bullies.

Consider speeding. Not only does it break laws, it also causes traffic compaction. Everyone ends up catching everyone else and 'platooning'. Someone will duck and weave to get ahead, causing greater risk of collision. Tailgating increases. More risk. More congestion. Worse, it makes it harder to change lanes or to enter that traffic flow in the first place. Speeding is not only selfish it's plain old bullying. Speeding cars make it just plain harder to judge entry onto another road - effectively making others wait rather than risk jumping in and accelerating hard. It's bullying. Let's stamp it out.

Whilst I'm on the subject, I was riding my bike carefully, safely and legally at 40kmh the other Sunday, in my own lane, at 9am. It's not exactly peak hour and the other lane was free. As I entered a roundabout a Mazda pseudo 4WD entered my lane about 1 metre away from me - ie spilt the lane. Now I don't usually mind so much - it's illegal here to do it though as you are meant to treat all vehicles equally and to not pass in the same lane - but to do it as we entered a roundabout!! So there we have one vehicle crowding another for no real reason as we go hard-right into the roundabout. Well I got emotional and called out 'get out of my lane!!'. To me on a bike, faced with one and a half tonnes of metal trying to keep me from taking a good, safe line through the corner this was plain old - you guessed it - bullying. Thinking about it, as they changed lanes about 1km later and turned right (so they neededn't have been in my (left) lane anyway) I don't think they either imagined that what they were doing was unsafe, illegal or intimidating. I'd bet 90% of the speeders and other traffic jammers out there don't have a clue either. So how do you get that message across?