I recently drove to Cambridge, Massachusetts, for a couple of days of meetings. On the way home, I got off the Mass Pike at I-84, and waited at the busy toll plaza there (click the Google Earth image to enlarge it; this ought to be obvious, but I should point out that it is not a live image from when I was there).
Note the truck that appears bright white as it approaches the toll plaza in the middle. That is the left lane of two Fast Pass lanes; the lane to its left, with the line of cars waiting for it, is a cash-only lane. At the time I arrived, the lane with the white truck was closed because of a collision at the entrance to the toll booth. That was obvious as one approached it, because of the police cars there with their flashing lights. The car in front of me was trying to merge into the Fast Pass lane to the right, and I was waiting to merge next. It was going a bit slowly, of course, but, hey, it wouldn't be long.
The driver of the shiny silver SUV behind me, though, with Connecticut license plate 0000[1], was impatient and demanded to get through. Of course, he couldn't really get anywhere; the best he could do was to be a jerk and merge a few car-lengths ahead of the two of us. He honked his horn anyway, and when that did him no good, he made to push past. But there was no room between the line of cars to the left... and me.
Yet push past, he did, between the line of cars to the left... and me. I watched in amazement as his SUV... scraped... my side mirror... for the entire length of his vehicle. It made that horrible metal-scraping-metal sound as it went. I can't remember when I've seen anyone do anything that moronically stupid.
And, well, he accomplished what he'd aimed to: he merged to the right about three cars ahead of the guy in front of me, without stopping to check the damage. I didn't care, because I just have a bit of his paint on the edge of my side mirror. He, on the other hand, has a scrape (and perhaps a dent) running the entire length of his formerly nice, new, clean, silver monstrosity. And that to get maybe five cars ahead of me in the toll lane.
I haven't bothered to report him to the police, though I have this fantasy of watching a police officer tear up the idiot's driver's license on the spot. It's just a fantasy, though, because it's obviously not what would happen, and given the lack of damage to my car it isn't worth the trouble to report it.
What a moron!
[1] You didn't really think I'd post his plate number, did you? I do have it, though.
2 comments:
I'm not one to imagine things, but the other day we were driving in Boston, and the traffic was the worst we've seen. A jerk took a right turn with nowhere to go, so he was out in the middle of the intersection when the light changed. The car that should have come through the intersection, but couldn't because it was blocked by the idiot, was being driven by a huge guy. That's the first time I've ever fantaszied about what should happen... I pictured the huge guy getting out of his car and beating the crap out of the idiot. That didn't happen, of course. James told me it's not healthy to have such fantasies, but I think it lowered my blood pressure!
Wow - that's pretty outrageous.
Maggie caught me in one of more philosophical moments on that day. It is one of my peeves to see people enter an intersection that they can't get through.
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