Every five years or so, the everyday transgressions of fellow citizens merit the same level of opprobrium this space usually bestows on corrupt or feckless public figures. Frankly, for example, horrible drivers affect readers’ lives more than do Donald Trump’s tweets or Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Surely there is time somewhere in purgatory reserved for drivers who are habitually heedless of common courtesy or safety. Everyone knows the chronic prevalence of drivers who won’t use turn signals or who won’t dim their bright lights when other cars are near, and of course of those texting messages or adjusting makeup as they lurch around our streets. Today, though, it’s time to bemoan and berate a particular subgroup of bad driverhood: the highway speed-shifters.
The first type of speed-shifter is the Slow Lane Tyrant. There you are, in the right lane, stuck behind this guy as he drives below the speed limit while a line of cars whizz past on the left. Yet the moment space opens in the left lane for you to pull out and pass, Mr. SLT suddenly speeds up. He may not be doing it to foil you; he may just have no idea that he suddenly has increased his pressure on the accelerator. But for whatever reason, as you try to pass him, he goes ever faster, accelerating beyond the point at which you can risk the speed or a trooper’s siren.
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So, giving up, you drop back behind Mr. SLT – only to have him space out and slow back down considerably, just as another line of cars speeds past on the left, boxing you in yet again. Brake, wince, and repeat: You can’t bear to be stuck behind him, but he just won’t let you pass him. Surely not even waterboarding can be this painful.
Mr. SLT’s close cousin is the Fast Lane Intermittent Jackrabbit. There you are, steadily and safely passing slowpokes on the right without obliterating the speed limit, when suddenly Mr. Jackrabbit zooms up from your rear at about 85 miles per hour. Worse, Mr. Jackrabbit is a tailgater, leaving no more than four feet between his bumper and yours.
But you can’t just duck out of the way: There is steady traffic on the right without safe gaps into which you can slip. And there’s no way you’ll go 90 just to please Mr. Jackrabbit, so for several minutes, his visage looks to be peering right through your rear window as you drive.
Yet when finally space opens on the right and you move into the slow lane, Mr. Jackrabbit pulls astride you — only to pick up his cellphone, space out as he talks, and match your slower speed. Yet as you speed up, so does he, and as cars ahead in the right lane slow you down, his pace abates again.
All of this happens without you ever having fallen prey to the urge to shoot him a dirty look or a disgusted wave. He’s boxing you in, either from malice or spaced-out-ness, no matter what you do —unless, that is, you find a chance to zip back to the fast (left) lane in front of him again, only for him suddenly to feel urgency and begin anew his tailgating routine.
A few minutes of this behavior can begin to seem not just like annoyances, but like sins against humanity. Yet there were no interstate highways in Dante’s day, so he never identified which of his infamous circles such drivers would inherit.
Worse, Dante never explained why there would be drivers like this to make your own roadway experience seem like hell on Earth.
