Driving in the Fast Lane

They feel like it's the most important thing for them to do once they get on the freeway - not to get up to speed, not to look for other traffic as they move on over, not to do anything else… just move over.

The speed limit in Utah is 75 on most of the freeway. Here in the city, it's been lowered to 65. Like most other places I've been, that means that the faster end of traffic is generally moving about 10mph faster than the posted limit. When traffic is flowing nicely, the limit is generally used as the bottom speed limit. The purpose of this speech is not to say that people should be breaking the law by going above the speed limit, but that they should observe the designated lanes and their purposes.

Just because you feel like you're going fast, doesn't mean you are. 55mph is a lot faster than your little tennis ball covered walker will move around the apartment, but it isn't faster than 99% of the other cars out there. If you're looking for attention, you've got it. You'd get a quick beating if you were to do that in the state of say… Anarchy (though California wouldn't be entirely out of the question).

Although this is aimed in your direction, you're probably going to miss the cues from this as well. You haven't noticed any of the following:

• the dirty looks
• the people cutting you off
• the middle fingers
• the mass of boogers on your car
• the fact that only you seem to get your tires slashed
• the key marks going up and down your car
• the way that nobody wants to ride with you
• the bare buttocks aimed in your general direction as cars pass you

We're sure that you're a nice person in general, but please do us all a favor, get out of the way.