What’s Up with Highway Driving?...the zig, zag, two step!

I’m the type of person who likes to make sense out of life.  I like order!  I definitely would call me a “rule follower” if I had to describe my philosophy of life! I believe in honesty and fair play and, as a little kid, I was always taught to hold hands when crossing the street for safety. I know I’ve got decades worth of ticker tapes floating around in my head of the “musts, shoulds and have to’s” of life.

 

But the world doesn’t seem to follow the same set of rules anymore.  In fact, I don’t think there’s much rule following going on anywhere!  Have you been on a major highway lately?  Drivers have all but destroyed the sacred rules of the road.  In fact, that drives me bonkers more than just about anything else.  So the posted speed is 70 mph.  The new unwritten rules of the road say that 80 mph is the new 70mph!  Here’s the thing:  Driving 80 seems now to be the new “suggested” speed limit.  Even the cops won’t usually bother spending the gas that it takes to chase a car down the highway for a mere 80 miles per hour anymore.  When I’m going 80 on I-75, I’m standing still.  Just the other day, I was driving to Orlando (and that’s a nightmare in itself), doing 75mph, in the middle lane of a three lane highway.  People were flying by me as if I were standing still.  I had to check my speedometer to make sure my car hadn’t stalled in the middle lane.  Meanwhile, people were pulling in front of me from all directions, a move I call the “zig, zag-two step”!  No signal, pass me on the left-zig.  Pull in front of me without warning. Then into the slow lane (ha!), only to accelerate to pass the next car in the middle lane-zag!  And all the way down the highway, doing the two step.  Never a signal required, and never a warning!  I have lately developed a sixth sense about these drivers merely for self-preservation, as I see them weaving within their  lane shortly before they make their move.  My husband shouts, “Go get ‘em cowboy”! 

 

Now, I’m not a person prone to road rage, but as a rule follower, I sure would love to make a citizen’s arrest—if I could even catch up with them, and if I could even predict whether they were going to zig or zag!  I’d chalk it up to some crazy driver on the road, but it seems to be the norm now! That drives me bonkers!