Comments on Pet Peeve: Cutting in Line on the Highway Exit.

My condolences on the loss of your shift key.

OMG, same thing with the spot where the on-ramp merges from HOV and single driver vehicle lanes into one lane, and the fucking HOV assholes don't merge... they gas it and go as far as they can on the right, often times driving on the shoulder, before cutting some law-abiding citizen off. ASSHOLES. You already got to bypass a ton of people, do you really need to be 3 cars farther up?

I think this about wraps up what we all admit to be true. Mostly that blogs like this are the production of people whom should probably be doing something else (writing articles, editing, et al) and are enjoyed by people whom should also be doing something else. In my case, working on my thesis. If I were actually doing something that didn't make me want to stab my eyes out, make me feel incompetent or was just a general annoyance, I wouldn't read EVERY DAMN post on Slog for the past three weeks straight. ugh. Anyone ever heard of getting motion sickness from reading while browsing? I swear I'm not making this shit up.

Well, that explains you, el. Glad you admit it.

@3 el, at first your post confused me and i was going to ask for a little clarification. like for instance, was i supposed to not blog, or was everyone supposed to not blog, or was everyone just supposed to not read what i was supposed to not blog?

then i re-read my post and i'm not sure i could even make sense out of it to begin with.

I totally sympathize with you- on I5 coming home during gridlock, there are two things that drive me batshit: first, it's people who drive in the "exit only" lane only to merge at the last possible second, and then people who use freeway exits such as the one for Northgate Mall only to come directly back onto I-5 just to bypass 100 yards of traffic.

I find that if I imagine them in a fiery ball of twisted metal that used to be their car, I feel a lot better.

And what's up with airplane food?
It's SO BAD!

@7. i see your point. who do i think i am, anyways? dr. professor obvious? at least that would suit better than infrequent.

... and sometimes I imagine sarcastic people in the fiery ball of wreckage that used to be their computer.

How can you say nothing funny is happening today? I saw this picture in the paper today of a kid in Rotterdam getting a vaccination, and it is possibly the funniest photo I’ve ever seen.

i say go on blogging, everyone (including me) should go on reading. there's was no normative claim, just an observation (and probably a little self-loathing admission).

Don't let 'em in. This is where the Many must become the One!

Here is the deal with the 12 items or less. The stores lately have like 3 or 4 express lanes open with no one in line and like ONE regular line with carts overflowing with items. So you make eye contact with the exprees lane cashier and he starts to help me then all of the sudden you come up out the blue behind me, notice I have 20 items, 6 of those fucking items being the same brand of Ravioli for $1 each, and get all pissed as if I am traveling in the car pool lane or something.

That is a funny photograph.

@10. that cracked me up! i stand corrected!

@13. ha! i've been in your shoes before -- and i know that happens. but those are the rare cases. i'm talking about the case where i'm behind the person with twenty unique items who's behind three other people.

but once, i got called over as you describe, and then the cashiers changed right at the moment, and the new cashier admonished me for having more than ten items. the time they enforce it...

This one was also pretty funny. Same vaccination event. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – crying kids are funny.

julie, you have just become one of my favorite fellow sloggers. really. they should have selected you to do this, not me.

You know what else I hate. People who drive slow in the left lane. You people in Seattle are complete wussies when it comes to driving. Back in Michigan if you were doing the speed limit in the right lane, you risked getting rear ended...and that was 70mph, not 60.

Here in Seattle, people are scared to do 60 in the left lane. And, this sucks at rush hour because you're limiting the number of cars that can go through the damn freeway. This is especially bad on the floating bridge. If you can't drive the speed limit, stay off the freeway, or at the very least get in the GODDAMNED right lane and let people pass.

Besides this, you people who don't leave room between cars are also the cause of snarl ups. If you're stopped, I can understand it. But, going 45 and tailgating?! Come on people. Drive smarter.

There needs to be an IQ test for Driver's Licenses. Driving should be more like the autobahn.

You think the cutting logjam problem's bad at 99/Western? Try the Express Lanes once you pass the Mercer exit every weekday morning, where I see this everyday during my 71/72/73 commute Downtown. It is epidemic all the way south to the end of the line, with people in both HOV lanes zooming over and stopping dead to cut into the I-5 thru lane.

18. Oh jesus christ, because we can't have a driving conversation without arguing about THIS shit... it's the fucking abortion debate of Seattle driving.

The merge from 90 west to I5 north is lotsa fun. I block the right land so no one is able to cut the line. People behind me freak out. I point and laugh.

@20. Save Jeebus. I didn't realize this was the irony-free zone. I didn't realize that "line cutting as a pet peeve" > "slow people in passing lane as a pet peeve" and that "line cutting" had any serious worth beyond the airing of grievances.

@17. Those pictures are about all I got in terms of Slogability. So, I'm pretty sure you're doing a better job than I could. Just post something about pitbulls, or bicyclists, or Mr. Poe's man-juice and you'll be fine...

@18:

What makes you think those slow-drivers-in-the-left-lane are FROM Seattle, as opposed to say, from the OTHER twelve bazillion cities people have moved to here from in the past decade?

And my similar personal pet peeve are the people who get into the inside left turn lane going southbound on Harvard Ave. E. at E Roanoke. Half of them do it because they're in "too much of a hurry" to wait in the longer line of cars in the outside lane that want to take the next right onto 10th Ave E.

I've actually been yelled at, flipped off, and almost run into by jerks who think I'M the asshole, because I won't let them cut back in line, thus causing them to sit there until all the cars that waited their proper turn go by them instead.

Ah, yes, COMTE, but you have POSITION in that circumstance. They've been foolish with theirs. They're bummed they're losing something that didn't need to be risked.

They could crash into you to make an expensive, illegal point I suppose. But you? You've got POSITION, man. You get to see how they play it - aggro, faux-friendly, or faux-dummy. Entertaining, all. Savor the moment.

The only people I know who pull that last-second merge crap grew up until approx. age 10 in California, then moved up here and were taught to drive by their Californian parents. Sadly, that's a lot of my friends. I, however, am a 3rd-gen Seattlite and will thus get into the right lane to merge literally a mile or more before I need to, and then sit and quietly* fume while people cut in line.

*It's only quiet because my windows are up so you can't hear my Tourettes-type outbursts.

Jessica wins @26.

22. The left lane argument is a tired no-win argument that every Seattle blog has seen 100 times.

I didn't realize the Stranger even allowed car drivers on Slog, only bike-riding, studio-apartment dwelling freegans.

I see people cut every day westbound on I-90 in the line to the ramp that leads to I-5 south. Another thing is that people don't use their turn signals.

I grew up in Seattle and don't remember these issues happening 15 or so years ago, I don't think alot of these people are from Seattle per se.

It's the end of the thread and on page 2 so no one's reading this, but I'll say it anyway: Everything you've heard about Boston drivers is true. I had major culture shock when I moved here. But yes, people who drive slow in the passing lane are assholes. But people who drive slow in the passing lane while leaving a great big yawning gap in front of them are begging to get cut off by people in the right lane. Which is a major pain in the ass for the people behind them. For God's sake don't tailgate, but keep moving or else get out of the fucking left lane. No one from the right lane is automatically entitled to be let into the passing lane just because they turned their blinker on.