A witness to road rage
I've seen a lot of stupid maneuvers on the roads, as I'm sure most Boston drivers have. I've also made some, mostly because of a momentary lapse in attention or failure to double check it was safe to go. And even though I get angry at someone who makes a bad move does anything from crowding my space to putting my passengers and I in danger, I don't react the way a Mercury Milan driver did this morning on Route 93 North in Somerville.We were traveling in a pack coming off the upper deck heading out of the city at a normal clip and the Milan driver had just passed me in the right lane. I made note of that car in particular because it looked a lot like a Toyota Avalon in my mind, and I started to think about how Mercury must be trying to compete when a silver BMW 3 series coming up the onramp from the Loew's cinema cut across the ramp's lane marker an into the Milan's lane at the same point as the Milan. Whoa! Luckily the Milan could move into the lane to his right.
That was scary enough for most of the drivers around them. I was about 10 seconds behind and essentially in a box seat for this whole scenario, so imagine what was going through my mind when I saw the Milan driver jam on his brakes, cut behind the Bimmer across two lanes to come up now on the Bimmer's right side, get back in front of the Bimmer and jam on his brakes. I had enough time to react if any of these point-proving acrobatics went awry, but the people around them quickly reacted by allowing the Bimmer to escape and move several car lengths ahead while also boxing in the Milan driver.
As I have said, I have been on both ends of the stupid move. I doubt the Bimmer intended to crowd out the Milan, but I still can't understand why so many people using that onramp fail to realize, or don't care, that they enter the highway in their own lane and will be able to change lanes further ahead. Many times I see cars, work Velasquez and tractor trailers making this move and it baffles me every time, because they are only causing a dangerous situation. Despite that, there's no reason to pull the crap that the Milan driver did. Perhaps he should write a blog about driving in Boston... |
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