Traffic Report.

This morning on my commute to work I got to see karma at work.  And between that and the fact that Colors of the Wind came on Pandora with enough time for me to hear the whole thing before getting to the office, my mood was set for the day.

During the first chunk of my drive to work I have to merge onto the 101 from a strange on-ramp; the on-ramp I use merges with another on-ramp from the street before mine and both merge onto 101 from the same lane.  It's very annoying, but there are lights that control the flow of traffic so it really could be much worse.

The karma action happened to the guy in the Jeep that was on the ramp behind me.  He was tailgating and revving his engine trying to intimidate the people in front of him so they would speed up.  Once he got behind me on the ramp I refused to speed up because I don't respond to intimidation techniques.  I'll pull over if I get tired of the bullshit, but otherwise I don't speed up for people that are trying to push me.  People just don't seem to understand that one car won't make a difference when you're already late for something, especially here.

Jeep merged onto the 101 in the middle of a line of cars before the line even dots.  Then he kept revving trying to get the black Lexus in front of him to speed up.  So the Lexus slowed down and let me over.

Then my favorite part happened.

There was a line of cars on the left preventing Jeep from moving over and zipping around.  He was stuck in another line of cars, trying to intimidate the dude in the Lexus to get him to move up the extra car length he left between his car and mine.  And Lexus slowed down a little more.  Just for good measure, just to be sure Jeep was stuck back there, wasting his gas like an idiot, until he got off the freeway two exits later.

Traffic sucks.  Everyone knows it.  But don't try to push your way through it like a dick.  You're not going to get there much faster, anyway.  I'd rather build up the good driving karma, just in case, because I have to merge A LOT and I don't like driving on the shoulder.

The moral of this story?

Don't be an asshole behind the wheel or some stodgy dude in a Lexus is going to box you in.  And I will love him for it.