This is an email I received from a good friend about yesterday's ride to work in Ottawa. An interesting commute? You could put it that way. Here is the description word for word. NB: He and the SHIFT key had a falling out many years back. SHIFT just seems to rub some people the wrong way, I guess.
get comfy.so i am driving to work today, 9am. nearing the end of my daily commute, there's a point where i need to get from the right lane to the left lane in order to hop into a left turning lane at an upcoming intersection.
it is a 'procedure' i've executed without incident every work day for the last 6.5 years; signal left, merge left with traffic, signal left again and hop into the turning lane wait for the turn signal and bingo bango bongo you're through the intersection. yes, it is a complicated procedure, but i'm quite a good driver.
historically, most drivers understand that sometimes, at intersections, people need to turn left. also, this is a particularly busy strip with heavy traffic in both directions, two lanes each. so it's not trivial at time but since 51% of all turns are left turns, drivers are generally pretty respectful.
generally, but not today.
cruising along at a whopping 25km/h, i initiate 'the procedure' in moderate traffic volume. signal. check the requisite blind spots, see an opening thrice my car length and merge.
almost.
i was about halfway across the lane and this pontiac mini sedan (we'll call it PMS) in the left lane didn't take kindly to the fact that i wanted to merge into an available space in front of them, so they accelerate... and lean on the horn. more horn. more horn... sitting right on my tail pipe. more horn.
i am now fully in the left lane thinking that by leaning on the horn as such, PMS was merely requesting that i acknowledge their kindness for not rear ending my car, so i did the respectful thing and wave (yes, mockingly and probably much longer than i should have, but f@!k i really do hate honking).
the honking then stops and I proceed to jump (now travelling a mind boggling 10km/h) left into the turning lane as we approach the intersection, where the light is red. *sigh* this has been the most interesting commute to work, to date.
game over, right? wrong.
