Integrity Testing In The GIMITY Lane
by ParatransitTodd
Citywide: Added on November 18, 2006
As a recovering Californian, I was pleased to discover evidence of actual honor among drivers up here that is substantially lacking south of the border. In the Bay Area, Darwinism is applied directly to etiquette on the highways and never will you find a scenario where a lane which is soon to end is unoccupied. Down there, they stack up from past the end of the dividing line.
When this lane is to end on the other side of a traffic light, both lanes that will soon be one are of the same approximate length.
Imagine my surprise, delight, and awe when I soon discovered that around here, people are actually mindful of the impending end of one lane (as dictated by a sign as to who merges with whom). Therefore, when you come to a stop light on a four lane road that is about to become a two lane road, the queue is longer in the lane that won't be disappearing seconds after the green.
This I found fascinating that people continually choose to merge before they have to, and most importantly they choose NOT to use the shorter line and make up spaces and thus tiny nanomoments of time on other drivers. The conscious choice to stay in the left lane when the right lane, soon to end, is shorter is a testament to honor, putting fair play above all else. These people clearly see that there are actually humans in other cars, and that being nice and/or civil with them has value.
But unlike in California where drivers are dispersed like marbles in a funnel, the presence of honor in Oregon adds perplexing questions to the American activity closest to anarchy. Up here, integrity is constantly tested. If you see the long line of cars on the left and the short line on the right, and you know that the right lane ends momentarily, the choice you make reflects upon you.
If in that instant you are fully aware of all these factors and you scoot to the right, then you are taking the GIMITY lane. GIMITY stands for "Gee, I'm more important than you!"
I'm a paratransit driver for TriMet, driving the 13-passenger vans that give folks with physical or mental challenges the opportunity to get where they need to go. I see everything on the roads. And I know that some GIMITY lanes aren't generally populated by those with antisocial intent, and some that definitely are.
Take Walker Rd. in Beaverton near the Nike campus. Twice a single lane becomes a double lane before a light, then quickly reverts to a single again on the other side of the intersection. Traffic backs up. The primary lane doesn't move so quickly. The bait is set. Invariably, a few will choose to wolf it down.
These GIMITY idiots clearly see that they are stomping on society, honor, and justice and the only thing that pops into their tiny little brains is, "Look at how much time I'm making on these suckers." Budding sociopaths. Shameless bad boys. Is that what cool is comprised of?
No, of course not. For that I look to the end of the third lane just past the Bethany exit ramp on westbound 26. There you'll regularly find a quarter mile of empty road nearly every weekday commute. Now THAT'S what cool should look like.
Of course, the absolute opposite is on constant display on eastbound 26 approaching and through the Vista Ridge tunnel. The temptation is far greater, apparently, and the GIMITY idiots of course are those that use the center lane as the GIMITY lane, then slam on their brakes when they perceive the tiniest crack in the lanes on the left or right. Yes, they probably passed 100 cars by doing this unsafe, illegal, subhuman act. Yes, they're probably laughing about it. But sometimes, in my perfect world, somebody honks at Vinnie GIMITY Idiot long enough that his girlfriend understands the nature of the transgression and punches him in the shoulder, puts him in the dog house for a few hours, perhaps even until morning. Karma should work that way.
Comments (3)
John The Body
On November 18, 2006
Ya know I'm the guy that uses the available, although soon to end, lane you describe. I drive to the very end of it, passing all the slower traffic and then merge into an available spot on the narrowed highway. It seems perfectly logical to me. We all paid the tax that built the lane, why don't more of us use it when available? Furthermore, I'm not an implant form Estonia. I'm a native Oregonian, born in Pendleton fifty plus years ago and, my use of the available but unused lane seems to upset many of those in my rearview mirror. Please, don't fret when someone uses the road God and ODOT supplied us with. If you choose to get over miles before a road narrows because you know it is coming even though it brings you to a stand-still ............... we can still be friends, but don't curse out those of us that use the available lane. We've been cursed at before and frankly your vocabulary is repetative.
joel h
On November 18, 2006
Thanks for your confession, John. Do you imagine that the other lane is full of moral degenerates who drive slowly because it's fun to torment other drivers?
It's actually your fault - yes, you personally - that the continuing lane slows to a halt. When you finally wedge yourself into the correct lane at the last possible moment, someone else is forced to brake, which forces the next driver to brake, which becomes a compression wave of stopped cars moving backwards through the lane. (It's worth standing on an overpass at rush hour - say, Broadway over southbound I-5 - just to watch this phenomenon.) That is the primary reason traffic stops - it's not necessarily a simple matter of density. But if you were to take advantage of gaps that exist in traffic that you pass, no one would have to slow down to let you in and these waves would never be created.
I never allow people who drive up to the end of a terminating lane to merge in front of me. I wish no one else would, either. After an hour or so of being stuck at the end of the lane, you'd learn...
John The Body
On November 30, 2006
Well Joel,
Allow me to respond to your admission as being one that would never let anyone merge in front of you. You are dangerous and a hazard on the highway. Stop playing these games with your bumper because eventually you will be explaining your theory of "me first", to a traffic cop. You may think what ever you may of my driving habits, but I always have room for anyone to merge. It's the civil thing.
Furthermore, you pose a question to me; you ask, "Do you imagine that the other lane is full of moral degenerates who drive slowly because it's fun to torment other drivers? My answer to your query would be absolutely not. I don't make moral judgements about people by observing their driving habits. That would be shallow wouldn't it Joel? The funny thing is you go on to describe how one can merge into gaps in traffic without causing anyone to tap their brakes. Hmmm? Could this be my practice?
I guess I'll never learn, as you say, because you won't find me waiting for hours with you at the end of the slow lane when another lane is moving along at speed. Enjoy the weather.
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