(business as usual)
Apparently we are supposed Zip-merge at a lane closure. I can accept the justifying maths (or is it geometry?), although I’m still certain my highway code book included the words “merge as early as possible” , although that may have been in 1984 (when rules were rules!)
After forty years of being an early merger, I find that, while I can restrain my abuse at the drivers in the outside lane, I cannot bring myself to take that path, lest I be thought a complete …(fill in your imprecation of choice).
The world, it would seem, has changed, and eventually dinosaurs such as myself will fade away – shouting. However, while I must grudgingly concede the logic of efficiency at using the outside lane (or the closing lane) to the very end, I took singular exception to a recent traffic incident where several geniuses, unhappy with the congestion at a motorway closure, decided that driving up the hard shoulder would be a handy short cut.
I felt no compunction at refusing this column of entitled idiots any opportunity to cut in, all the funnier because;
a/ I was not alone, and there was a surprising solidarity in the “correct ” queue,
and,
b/The hard shoulder was blocked by a large sign indicating the need to merge the other lanes.
My how we laughed.
Then fate took a hand – as it became apparent that an ambulance, legitimate in it’s use of the hard shoulder for its full blues and twos emergency, was now stuck behind our selfish friends to the left.
While it too would have been undone by the sign, I doubt anyone would have refused it entry, and for that reason alone, it became necessary to admit the “hard shoulder brigade”. I’d like to think they were suitable chastened, nae, ashamed, but somehow I doubt it.
I suspect this story should appear in some kind of AITA? blog, but I require no such external validation. I’m 62 with a flat cap and a bad eye. I’ve earned opinionated and grumpy…
Next time on IaDL: More table thumping? or will I stop and smell the flowers?
Who knows?
