It can be scary

[Update: Since this was written in February, I assumed people would know I was not riding my scooter in this story. But just in case, you should know that I was driving our minivan to work this day.]

Yesterday, as I was driving into work, I had just passed an interchange where one heavily-traveled road joined the four-lane highway I was on. I usually pull to the left to let drivers from the other road merge into traffic on the larger road because traffic can be pretty heavy on both roads. Lots of people from the smaller road seem to forget that they are supposed to merge - but that's a story (and rant) for another day!

This day, drivers from the other road settled into positions ahead of me and behind me and it was a relatively easy day for me. Until I noticed that the driver behind me was pretty close. Uncomfortably close. So close that I could see that they weren't on their cell phone (what a surprise) and they were looking straight ahead. So, there didn't seem to be a distraction causing them to ignore the space between us. I assumed they were getting ready to pass me and were just waiting for other people in the left lane to pass first. But when I looked in my mirror, I saw no one in the left lane. My bumper hugging friend could pass at any time.

I was on time for getting to work so I was not speeding but thought that maybe I could help out by slowing down a bit. The car behind me didn't get closer (which would have really alarmed me) so I knew they were at least paying some attention to the situation. So, I slowed down some more. Still nothing. As I stole glances in the rear view mirror, it looked like the driver wasn't looking around (as you would expect if they were looking to pass) - just staring straight ahead. I began to be distracted by this situation and just wanted them to pass me so I could get back to paying attention to other things. I slowed down some more. We were now going 50 miles per hour in a 55 miles per hour speed zone. No change. Slowed down to 45. No change. 40 - no change. Finally, when we got down to about 35 miles per hour, the driver turned to look around and then passed me. Not fast or cutting it close like you might expect from someone who was upset with my going so slowly. Just a normal pass.

Maybe they were used to really heavy traffic where you don't have the luxury of having a three second buffer between you and the car in front of you. Maybe they were listening to something really interesting on the radio and were not paying attention. Maybe they had a hands-free cell phone and were engaged in a really interesting conversation. Maybe they were just sleepy and driving on autopilot. No matter what it was, they were not paying attention and it scares me (I wrote about this before). As I sped back up to my regular speed, I was glad to have that behind me. But when would the next one come up?