To the young woman in the nice new SUV who cut me off as I attempted to merge into traffic on Boudreau Road last Wednesday, let me say, I understand. I understand the sentiment you probably were feeling.
A construction blockage reduced Boudreau from two lanes to one and you saw this guy, in a sporty looking pickup truck, trying to merge into your lane of traffic and you might of thought, “he's trying to jump the cue.” So you sped up and cut me off. And then laughed about it.
You might have thought I was rushing home from work – perhaps like you – in a hurry, just trying to get ahead of everyone else. I understand how you could feel like that. Now I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here, because if that's not the case, if you simply did it out of spite, for kicks, that would say something entirely different about the type of person you are.
Now, if I might, I would like to explain what happened from my point of view. I was pretty much trapped in that lane because I had turned onto Boudreau only a block earlier. My choices were pretty limited, given the long line of vehicles in "your" lane. Having said that, when approaching a two-lane-down-to-one situation like that, I always remember what transportation officials will tell you is proper traffic etiquette. They will tell you that drivers in those lanes should merge at the point of obstruction in an orderly interlaced manner. That is – one vehicle from one lane goes, then the next vehicle in that lane gives way to a vehicle from the blocked lane. And so on. This is what I was thinking when I attempted to merge. I was not rushing home from work. I did not work that day. I was not in a hurry. I was actually out for a leisurely drive to the store.
Things aren't always the way they seem, a lesson most often learned the hard way. And lesson, it seems, some never learn. Perhaps, in your case, you were just having a bad day, in a rush to get home. Regardless, proper traffic etiquette is something we all need to learn, if we're to get along on our increasingly busy roads.
Grant Gelinas, St. Albert
