Today on my drive to Indiana for the weekend, I was thinking about my driving style. Or everyone’s driving style for that matter. Weaving through rush hour traffic with Dierks sliding around on the back seat, I was thinking about the people that drive me crazy on the road. No, this isn’t going to be a post about road rage. After getting over my annoyance at the bad drivers, I started thinking about the lanes of traffic differently.
After we got through the mess of the merging traffic and were finally on a steady pace, I realized I’m a middle driver. Some people always stay in the left lane, while others feel more comfortable to the far right. I’m an in-betweener. I like the feeling of having options – to be able to slide over to the left if someone is too slow for me, or if I suddenly want to get off on an exit – I have that option. I like to plan; to prepare. If I’m driving somewhere unfamiliar you’ll always see me in that middle lane, ready to veer any minute to where I want to go.
The folks in the slow lane aren’t necessarily boring people. They could be, but they could also be people that enjoy the ride. They aren’t in a hurry and they aren’t looking to weave through traffic like their running away from somewhere. Sometimes I wish I was a right laner – I’d be more calm. Less planning, less insane energy all the time.
Now, you left laners. Some of you are skilled, while others of you are not. You are more adventurous; you obviously prefer speed. You could always be type that’s last minute too. You wait until the last second before your exit and veer through two lanes of traffic to get where you need to go. And you never miss it. Sometimes, you scare people in the act or stress them out with your last-minute habits. If you’re good at, then good for you. It’s the drivers that wait until the last minute to merge in a construction zone, and then expect the people already in their correct lane (who have been waiting patiently) to let you in. These could possibly be the people who say they’ll be somewhere at 5 p.m. and show up at 6:15 p.m.
I’m a middle laner and I’m a also letter-inner. I always leave a large gap, always handing people a spot in the miles of traffic. I counted: I let 8 cars in front of me today while we waited in stop-and-go traffic to funnel down to one lane. I like to be helpful I suppose. I guess you can just call me a pathetic middle laner.
So there you have it. I somehow turned traffic into a personality game. What lane are you?
