Road Outrage
Would the driver of a dark-blue van with aluminum ladders
attached to the roof and the letters ELM painted on its sides please report to
the Phoenix office, so I can smack you in the face with a nine-pound hammer.
I was just driving to work this morning on the Pike in the
second-from-the-left lane somewhere around Newton — doing about 60 — and this big
blue vehicle labeled ELM starts drifting into my lane from the right at a
fairly high rate of speed. So I honk; just a short toot, assuming it's just another
fool on his cell phone, but does he drift back to the right? No, he accelerates
and pulls into my lane, which is tantamount to steering into the side of my
car.
Fortunately even my clumsy little Toyota was capable of responding to my deft emergency
evasive maneuvers, and after a bit of zigging and zagging and judicious
alternating applications of brakes, gas, and side-view mirror, I got out of his
way.
Without trying, I caught up to the bastard at the Allston tolls,
but he was still weaving and speeding and, I was unable to get his license
number — or read the address under the ELM. Thus this jerk avoided being
identified more precisely.
I do hope his boss (who no doubt paid a lot for that tuck) is a
hip guy who reads the Phlog. Failing that, I can only hope that his next
high-speed lane wander takes him into the path of one of those classless
Cadillac SUVs driven by someone reading a text message. Or a state cop.