The Occupied Left Lane: Whatever Happened to Courtesy on Our Roads?

We are in a time when people feel the need to occupy things. Wall Street is a recent occurrence, but it seems like the left lane on every highway in Florida has been occupied by drivers who just do not care if anyone else is on the road alongside them. There was a time when we were told to keep right except to pass. This courtesy allowed people traveling faster than us to move along unhindered. Now it is not unusual to find people traveling at a speed slower than allowed by law in the left lane on Rte. 75 or other highways oblivious to the long line of cars behind them. In this time of "ME", it seems as though everyone should do as they please without any thought about the other people affected.

This "ME" phenomenon is not limited to the left lane on highways. Driving across University Parkway today, I witnessed three different events that demonstrated a marked indifference to other drivers on the road. First, as I was going to turn left onto University from Rte. 41 where there are two left turn lanes, one driver decided that he did not really want to turn left onto University, stopped, turned on his right turn signal, blocked everyone behind him from making the left, and waited for a the southbound traffic to start moving so he could continue on his merry way. Every car behind that driver had to wait until the light changed again. Who cares that 10 cars missed the light, the one driver got to go where he wanted.

At the intersection of Tuttle and University, a northbound truck was waiting to turn right onto University and decided to make the turn on red. There were not many cars traveling on University at the time and it would have been fine, except the truck did not make its turn on red into the right lane. It made the turn on red into the center lane of University forcing two cars out of the center lane and almost causing an accident. Who cares if there were cars in that center lane, the truck driver wanted to be there.

As I approached the intersection of University and Rte. 75, I experienced what is becoming a regular occurrence when a driver did not know whether he wanted to be in the left lane or right lane to get onto Rte. 75. So he drove slowly down the middle lane deciding what to do and then cut off a car on his left to get into the lane he wanted to get to. Who cares what other people are doing, as long as that driver gets to where he wants to go. It seems as though a car's turn signal is no longer a signal to other drivers that a turn will come when it can safely be executed, but more a signal to get out of my way because I am cutting you off now.

Add to these type of incidents the common "ME" behaviors that include texting, phone conversations, beating a traffic signal about to turn red and other such distractions and we have a real recipe for disaster around here. Why don't more people look around and see that "WE" are all on these roads? Why can't we act as though everyone else deserves the same consideration that we do? Why can't we be courteous?