Read. Follow Directions. Don’t be Rude.

Sometimes driving drives me nuts, and the more cars on the road, the more chances there are to become irritated. One thing that irritates me greatly is when people are just plain inconsiderate and think that the rules just don’t apply to them. That somehow they’re outside, superior to the rules the rest of us follow and it’s okay for them to break them.

To get into Portland from the west side, many of us take the Sunset Highway that takes them through the Vista Ridge Tunnel. The road has three lanes and each lane goes to a different area: north, city center and south—so you have to be in a certain lane to get to the destination you want to go to. There are signs posted telling drivers which lane goes where—and it’s posted several times (so there’s no excuse not to know which lane you ought to be in).

And then comes the sign that says “No lane changes for the next ½ mile” for the section right before the tunnel until the three lanes turn into three separate roads right after the tunnel ends. This sign makes perfect sense to me because traffic slows with the approaching tunnel (which creates more congestion) and if everyone tried to change lanes right before the road diverges, there’d be chaos.

However, there always seems to be someone who decides that they don’t really care that they’re screwing everyone else behind them by switching lanes in or around the tunnel. Almost without fail, this inconsiderate action causes everyone behind this car to slow down as they try to squeeze themselves into a lane they should have already been in. It makes me so irritated because these inconsiderate people had ample time to get into the lane they wanted to be in but just didn’t. Likely they wanted to bypass the traffic (in the lane they eventually wanted to be in) and then cut in line at the last second—guess what, that’s what we all want to do, but we don’t (because we know that it causes problems for everyone else).

It’s just so selfish. And whenever this happens it puts me in a foul mood—and that’s never a good start to the day. It’s not hard to follow the rules, but apparently it’s easy for some to break them.