When I first saw that thread, it made me wonder about my anal-retentive tendencies in general...and it made me realize that they only ones I have that change my daily behavior and bother me on a psychological level all related to driving, with many specific to the area that I live in. For my own cathartic purposes, I will post them for anyone with enough patience to actually read the entire thing. ;)

Hi, I'm Little Mouse, and I have hard-core traffic related anal-retentiveness.

For instance, I never drive north on Steamer* between 9th and 10th unless it is the middle of the night and there is no traffic. Even then, I avoid it. If someone else is driving and he or she insists upon going north on Steamer after 9th, it makes me want to die. I can't handle it. There are about 98473 stop lights in a row, half of them are un-timed, and it's a six lane road with a median which means it was made for high traffic and there IS high traffic, which means I will get stuck at more than one light, and often at one light right after the other. Not cool. There are way more efficient ways to travel north.

Similarly, the left lane going north on Albany always goes slower than the right lane between the highway and historic downtown. Always. I never drive in the left lane on Albany, and only get into the left lane if I actually must turn left. And I make sure I stay in the right lane as long as possible before the turn. Only at late hours of the night does the right lane travel at similar speeds, and is therefore acceptable to drive in. As with on Steamer, I can hardly handle when I'm riding in a car with someone who drives in Albany's left lane. Can't they see how inefficient they're being? Don't they see all the cars flying past on the right? I know it's counter-intuitive for a right hand lane to be faster than the left, but it's true. I've had lots of experience driving down Albany. Anyone who's driven north on Albany more than a couple of times should notice this. It's so obvious.

Ambassador is also a road that has one lane that is more efficient than the others. It's an eight lane road that travels east to west and the fastest lane in both directions the lane that's second from the median. Now, I understand that there are lots of stores, restaurants, and attractions lining Ambassador and with four lanes across in each direction, being close to a turning lane is imperative if you wish to go to one of the aforementioned businesses. But when just driving through, the lane that's second from the median is, once again, the fastest and most efficient. Always. It is not adjacent to a turn lane ever, so they are never slow moving badly timed merging cars EXCEPT in times of high traffic, in which case they are unavoidable anywhere on Ambassador.

People who create traffic jams by not being considerate enough to let other people merge also bother me. Letting one car go in front of you from the highway entrance ramp is not going to make you significantly late to your destination. However, if you box that car out, forcing it to slow as its own lane ends, you in turn also force a car behind you to slow down when the merging car must now enter the highway at a slower than optimal speed to avoid going off the road. This makes several consecutive cars in that lane slow down to compromise, and the distance between each of those cars also shrinks. The next car coming down the highway entrance ramp now has nowhere to merge, because there is not a significant amount of space between any two cars. He is forced to slow, the pattern continues, and makes my normal twenty minute commute last for forty-five minutes. First Jerk Car that decided to pace the merging car gets home on time. Everyone behind him is late. First Jerk Car would have been on time anyway had he not been a jerk. First Jerk Cars hardly ever learn because they are not around to see the fruits of their efforts, and I am stuck in a traffic jam. Unless you are a Different Kind of Jerk Car that drives on the shoulder to try and get ahead of other cars, I will let you merge. Merging is a part of driving, and proper merging helps keep traffic flowing and keeps everything efficient.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm big on traffic efficiency. Driving smart is a part of that. I almost can't wait until robots drive our cars and traffic jams will be nearly eliminated my the absence of inefficient drivers.

*road names have been changed so you can't find my house. ;)

Wow, Little Mouse, you really are anal about traffic efficiency. Have you thought about getting a job to see if you can improve it? You'd be great.

Yeah, that would require an engineering degree of some kind...and I prefer not to do math for a living. :lol:

I would much rather force smart driving habits upon others using only my will. Sadly, I don't possess mind control of any kind. Which is why I eagerly await cars that drive themselves. They will not suffer from road rage. They will not tailgate unnecessarily. They will make appropriate driving decisions based on road conditions and the cars around them. And most importantly, they will know the most efficient way to get to any destination, and my life will be bliss.

Humm... this is why I'm glad I don't drive. I have enough issues with other things that really bother me, that I think I would die if I added driving issues to that list.

Already I have problems, where I insist on crossing Wheeler's road AFTER the lights cause if you cross at the lights you have to wait for two sets, where you can cross Hamper at the lights and Wheeler further down where there's next to no traffic...

Mind you, I've been known to walk down Wheeler on the tram tracks at 3am.... much, MUCH more efficient... bahaha

Oh yeah, that's like after ten o'clock on River Road it's faster to turn right onto Steamer and then left at then turn around than it is to wait for the light to change. But only if stopped at the beginning of the red light. Mid-red light, it is faster to wait.


Unrelated: Mousie, the similarities of our users names sometimes makes me feel as though we should be secretly related. Like I'm your evil clone from another dimension.

And just FYI, I chose my user name in honor of River Tam. And another thing that would make my life bliss would be seeing her beat more people up. This dream was partially realized with the advent of The Sara Conner Chronicles, but the plot of the show thus far as been less than stellar and I know that I'm only watching to see Summer Glau kick some butt.