[fabsroman]

Ol' Joe,

Welcome aboard and almost any first post is better than no post at all.

If I get started about driving around here in the Washington, DC area, I could go on forever. One thing I do notice is that there is a difference between driving my F-350 Crew Cab and driving my Taurus. If I am driving the Taurus, people pay almost no attention to what I intend to do through my signalling. If I signal that I am going to change lanes, the guy two lanes over will just pull into where I want to go without even putting on his signal.

Yesterday I was driving my truck on the highway at 65 mph and put the left turn signal on to perform a lane change, let it blink about three times and then looked over to check out the blind spot. At that moment, a Scion pulled up two lanes over to the left with his right turn signal on. The driver and I looked at each other, and I started to pull into the lane. He didn't try to beat me there. Instead, he hit the brakes and pulled in behind me.

When I put the turn signal on in the Taurus, people behind me in the lane I want to merge into will hit the accelerator to try and close down the gap so I cannot get in. When I put the turn signal on in the truck they back off and leave a huge gap for me. If I could afford to pay for all the gas, I would drive the truck or an Excursion all the time.

As far as seeing people read while driving, I have seen people reading the newspaper with it sprawled across the steering wheel at 75 mph on I-95 north between Washington, DC and Baltimore and I have seen the same thing done with a book.

People think they can multi-task in the car while driving just like they multi-task in the office on the computer. Big mistake.

Okay, I am going to leave my driving rant for the night because I still have work to do.