A Simple Story of a Boy Named Zoomer

Happy Monday!

I'm on call this week for work so I'll be hunkered down in the home office. We will have our industrious field reporter, my wife, Tammy to relay her ongoing extreme commute stories. Everybody give her a hand! (OK, if you find yourself clapping right now, turn off your computer and find a good book.)

In the mean time, let’s reach into the Little Box of Commute Terror or as I like to call her after 2 martinis, Misses Blandinhable. Nope, no idea why that particular name seems appropriate, but I do love a nice martini.

Misses Blandinhable produced a fine commute frustration for us to discuss today. This lovely scenario commonly occurs like this. You have joined the line of weary travelers preparing to exit the freeway, something our British friends would refer to as "queuing" (an activity for which they apparently have a national skill for).

So, you're doing the responsible, respectful thing, waiting in line, paying your dues. In other words you are adhering to basic skills that were taught to all of us at an early age, hopefully by our parents, but if not you likely learned this lesson in kindergarten. The bottom line is I think it’s safe to say that everyone understands that cutting in line is wrong and when done while operating a death machine is amazingly dangerous too.

Do you like "zoom" or "whoosh" for what’s coming next? I'm a fan of zoom.

Zoom, our fabulous example of assembled questionably viable cells flies by you. You begin to hear this sound, "weep, rverp, mahnleep, rurp glip" as the obvious Golden Globe candidate for Best Absurd Freeway Comedy plays in reverse and you realize that the likely cause of your delay in exiting is in fact, Zoomer and his compatriots, the Zoomettes. The reason being is that Zoomer is about to do a little thing called The Gore Point Slam.

You know that little pointed triangular area that exists at exits? That little area is called a Gore Point. I probably haven't mentioned but, in the early '90's I spent a few years working as a radio operator for the Washington State Patrol. Like any organization it has its challenges and being government run those challenges are compounded. However, I've got to say some of the finest people I've known and worked with I met while working there. Some of the most formative experiences of my life occurred during those years, and I look back on them with real appreciation and respect.

OK, Zoomer approaches the Gore Point looking for his victim. This gives the patient, respectful motorist who happens to be there at the time, two choices. They can either close the space between themselves and the car in front of them, effectively performing another unsafe tailgating maneuver or they can take the safer, ethically higher ground and give Zoomer enough room to safely inflict his selfishness on everyone in line.

What a choice to have to make! The former provides a momentary sense of personally administered justice but the latter, regardless of the carnival strength test bell ringing stress level it causes, is probably the safer tactic that will land on the higher moral ground. I do attempt to settle for the clang that bell makes, but I'm going to confess that on more than one occasion I've gone Charles Bronson on more than one Zoomer.

Before we call it a day, let me share with you a term Tammy coined, The Butthead Lane. The prime example of this lane has been introduced by the new HOV freeway ramps like that found on I-5 in Federal Way. This style ramp system recently placed on I-5 in King and Snohomish counties allow carpools and bus the opportunity to enter and exit the freeway directly to and from the HOV lane.

Where this ramp connects to the HOV lane it creates a new "left lane" that runs for a few hundred yards that allows the merge to occur. This my friends is The Butthead Lane. This lane introduces 3 distinct behaviors.

1. Motorists entering the freeway from the surface street use the space to properly merge into traffic. If you missed it, you may want to read my post on merging.
2. Motorists who while driving in the HOV lane, see this lane appear and mistakenly change into this lane. You can identify this driver because once they realize the purpose of this lane, their right hand turn signal engages and they attempt re-occupy their former position. Usually a little red glow can be seen from the cabin of the vehicle and perhaps a little wave to the driver behind them.
3. Motorists who know exactly what this lane is for and are completely aware that this lane will end. They have been waiting for this opportunity and quickly maneuver their vehicle into this lane (usually no turn signal). This allows them to zoom ahead four or five car lengths and then perform the Anti Gore Point Slam. At this point Zoomer takes on a new moniker, that of Butthead. From this is derived the term Butthead Lane.

The crazy thing about all examples of this traffic behavior is that Zoomer and his progeny, Butthead, gain at the most 5 minutes every 60 miles of travel (an experienced guess here) in exchange for delaying hundreds (likely thousands) of fellow motorists to the same degree if not longer.

How does Zoomer sleep at night?

Don't drive angry! Drive weird!