You Need to Start Driving the Way I Want You to Drive

The truck, some old early 80's looking Ford hulk, started to back out of its driveway. But it wasn't onto a regular neighborhood street. Rather, it was onto a four lane boulevard with average traffic flow. In this particular moment, as the truck very slowly moved in reverse and completely blocked the entire width of the street, the traffic was flowing simultaneously in north and southbound directions at about 40 mph. And the edge of both traffic flows was approximately 1/8 mile away from the truck.

Typically, we were at the head of the northbound traffic flow, realizing that this hulk of a truck was not going to be able to get moving before we came upon it. I slowed down and silently cursed the redneck looking driver of the truck for being an inconvenience to my driving schedule. I suspected that the drivers at the front of the southbound traffic flow were doing the same.

As my car slowed down in order to not broadside the truck, it slowly turned around to point in the northbound direction. It moved about as quickly as a large yacht trying to change course. By the time I had come to a near stop directly behind him, he had finally straightened out his vehicle. The reverse lights turned off as he shifted into drive, and he slowly accelerated forward.

Ever.

So.

Slowly.

I began to grind my teeth as it became obvious that this truck was probably capable of 0-60 in 3 days. Using the last of my remaining momentum, I swerved into the inside lane to move around him and gunned it. I didn't need much to get by him, which was a good thing since my car wasn't exactly known for its power. Almost immediately after the rear of my car passed the front of his, I cut back into my original lane, positioning myself 10 feet or so in front of the truck, and accelerated off into the distance.

"Did you really need to do that?" asked Lisa.

I nodded, satisfied that I had, at least in my mind, communicated my irritation through my driving actions. I looked in my rear view mirror and noticed that those behind me were doing the same thing to the truck, as it still had not broken 20 mph. I continued the drive home, satisfied that my actions had been justified by others committing the same maneuver. Maybe that will teach the truck not to pull out into oncoming traffic again, but somehow I doubted it.