The UK Strikes Back at Highway A-Holes.

Well I'll be damned! The UK might finally be taking the issues of Highway A-holes serious after all. 10 MPH on the M32? If you can't handle a stretch of road where everyone else regularly drives upwards of 60 MPH, stay the Hell away from it! And no, it doesn't matter if she had a medical condition. If the condition hinders her ability to drive SHE SHOULDN'T DRIVE! Enough rant, here's the Reuters story;

LONDON (Reuters) - A woman banned from driving for seven days after traveling at speeds of less than 10mph on the motorway told Reuters on Friday: "that road's my nemesis." Stephanie Cole, 58, of Fishponds, Bristol, straddled the hard shoulder and inside lane as she dawdled along a stretch of the M32 near her home last August.

In the back window of the car was a sign which said: "I don't do fast, please overtake".

Cole admitted driving without reasonable consideration at North Avon Magistrates' Court on Friday and was told she would have to take another test at the end of the ban.

"I didn't intend getting onto the motorway, but all of a sudden I found myself on it and I could not get off," she told Reuters after the hearing.

"I just panicked. I hate that particular stretch of road and I avoid it normally. It is my nemesis."

Cole had been traveling from her home to a stationer's when she was arrested in her Perodua Kenari mini people-carrier.

"I thought "thank God" when I saw the blue flashing lights," she said. "I thought they could help and I asked them if they could drive me home."

Cole, who has multiple sclerosis, said she depends on her car for getting around.

"I will try and retake the test," she said. "I will have to do my best when driving, and hope it is better than it was."

AUGUST 11, 2007 @ 12:45 am – NB 405 Fwy at 101 Fwy Interchange

God damnit CalTrans!

You have a really cool and hourly updated website. For almost a decade it has been the trusted online source for scheduled freeway closures. These closures are usually for road work, lane re-striping, k-rail installation or removal, road survey work, etc. Anything to do with the scheduled maintenance of the statewide California Freeway System. Knowing where these closures are allows the California driver to plan alternate routes if necessary so they are as inconvienced as little as possible due to the closure.

So here's why you guys at CalTrans are Highway A-holes.

Your website located at http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist07/laneclosures/d7PClos.htm states that this morning at 1 am, the entire on and off-ramps for the 405 NB to 101 EB and SB ramps will be closed for k-rail removal and lane striping. No problem. For most of us that means getting to through the intersection closure before their public announced scheduled times.

But, someone on the scene in one of those fucking orange trucks for CalTrans decided to start the closures early, like more than 15 minutes early. At 12:45 am, all lanes for the 405 NB to the 101 interchange were closed way before their scheduled 1 am start time. Boy did this put a crink in the driving plans of every fucking motorist traveling NB through the area trying to get through BEFORE the closure started.

When you are a good driver and check the closures before you travel through an area that has an expected closure, yuo would expect CalTrans to honor their schedules and not create even more emotional commuter shit amongst the citizens of the highways.

AUGUST 7, 2007 @ 8:29 am – NB 101 Fwy at White Oak Ave

Look people, if your car isn't running to par with the rest of traffic, please pull over to the shoulder or get off the freeway altogether.

Our Highway A-hole today is a high school age boy driving a newer blue Subaru WRX, complete with a wing across the back trunk. He was in the number 2 lane driving 45 mph amongst traffic that was going 60 mph+. People were passing him on the left and right. He had his emergency flashers on constantly. As I was almost ready to pass him, the car ahead of me decided it would be a good idea to let the bloke over to the right. I agreed, he must be having mechanical problems of some type or why else would he be driving in the middle of traffic with the flashers on, right?

None such doin'. Even though cars started to leave the Subaru wide berth to slide off the freeway, or at least over to the right lanes where he belonged, he ignored the gestures and kept driving as I started to pass him... now at 40 mph.

Wake up people, look around you and use the opportunities offered to you in such situations. It will keep us all happy and safe.

JULY 23, 2007 @ 6:10 am - SB 101 Balboa Ave

Today we actually had a summer thunderstorm pass through the LA area. It made the air hot and humid as the day wore on. But, it was the morning effect of the storm that caused the Highway A-holes to bloom.

Whenever it rains here after a long dry spell two things happen; 1. The roads have less traction due to the road oil coming out of the crevices and floating to the surface, and 2. People forget how to drive on a slick road.

Slow down you A-holes! For the last 5 months we have had near 0 precipitation. You have all seemed to have forgotten how to drive safely in the rain. I mean c'mon now, all you have to remember is to slow down and keep an extra car length or two between you and the car ahead of you. And don't worry about what's going on behind you unlike what this bozo did.

I was in the number 5 lane puttering along in the rain about 15 mph. All traffic was moving fairly well. Just as I passed the Balboa on-ramp the car ahead of me, a 1995'ish silver Nissan Altima, decided to pull half way out of his lane to the right so that now he was driving half-way in the slow land and half-way on the on-ramp merge lane.

I've seen this before. This action usually means that someone was merging into traffic from the Balboa on-ramp and the chump driving the Altima wasn't about to let the black Honda Prelude pass him to merge. What the Altima didn't realize, was that a newer white Ford F250 truck saw the Altima move to the right, and figured I guess that he was pulling over. The F250 began to merge from lane 4 next to the Altima into the space the Altima half-way occupied now in lane 5 - the slow lane.

Horns blasted, people were yelling, brake lights lit up like a streak of Christmas lights. The F250 appeared to have taken control of the lane and was motoring on. The Altima was now completely on the right side shoulder, and the Honda Prelude was right behind the Altima - both stopped.

JULY 17, 2007 @ 8:22 pm - NB 405 to NB 101 Transition

Well sonofabitch, it's a two-fer Tuesday!!!

Getting back into the San Fernando Valley from the LA Basin between 3:00 pm and 10:00 pm is usually at a minimal pace, or a downright crawl. This evening, the NB traffic was moving about 20 miles per hour all the way from the 405/10 interchange to the 405/101 interchange. As I merged into the exit collector lanes to get onto the 101 N, I glanced over to my left and see this absolutely bitchin black Acura NSX driving next to me. The car is so low to the ground, I couldn't see the driver from the cab of my truck. You used to see these cars a lot on the highways of LA but not so much anymore.

I had already been on the road over 2 hours by this time. As I was easing my truck out from under the overpass of the NB 101 merge, the Acura signalled it wanted to get in my lane - which I gladly permitted since we weren't going anywhere fast anyways.

Along this stretch of merging lanes, Cal Trans has set up a series of standing traffic dividers, kind of like traffic cones but thinner and taller. The orange and reflectorized dividers are spaced about every 4 to 5 feet apart parallel to the lanes to keep the merging traffic of the NB 405 traffic separated from the NB 101 traffic until the road straightens out. It makes for much safer merges.

So here was the Acura who just moved in front of me now driving about 5 mph - much slower than the rest of traffic. Just a bit further along, the Acura came to a complete stop and turned on its right blinker. Strange, since the traffic dividers I described were all along our right side acting as a barrier so no one could dart into the merging traffic until a bit further up the road. The Acura eventually ran up it's RPMs, broke rubber and darted over 3 or 4 of the dividers (they are a break-away type) and crossed into the NB 101 traffic. The now run-over dividers popped back up to their semi-ridged previous state.

I kept an eye on the Acura as I drove ahead in the merge lane watching it as, in a very short distance, the car crossed 5 lanes of traffic making on-coming traffic come to a stop. Once the NSX got to the far right side of the 101 Fwy is became clear it was trying to get to the NB 101 at Haskell off-ramp. I think that keeping traffic from darting across the 101 to that off-ramp was another reason why the barrier was in place as well.

Only in maniacal LA will some Highway A-hole take a $100,000 car and do such a jack-ass thing.

JULY 14, 2007 @ 3:35 pm - SB 101 Fwy at White Oak Blvd Off-ramp

Maybe someone out there can tell me... exactly what is the maximum limit height a driver can stack broken down cardboard boxes in the back bed of a 1985 Toyota mini pick-up? I would think no higher than the cab of the truck would be prudent.

Today I see this truck, faded blue in color with no license plate, driving in the number two lane of traffic traveling no faster than 45 mph. The flattened cardboard boxes stacked in the bed were piled above the truck bed to a point about 6 feet above the top of the cab. The towering layered stack was semi-secured with motorcycle tie-down straps hap-hazardly attached to the cleats bolted on the outside of the bed. The excess strapping material was flapping in the wind.

As I drove behind the truck, I could tell that at any moment this pile of cardboard was about to fall off the truck. I hastened passing the truck as a precaution to not being involved in any foreseeable accident should the load shift and spill on the highway. As I passed and look back in my rearview mirror, I see the cardboard stack severly waver from my passing draft. This caused the truck to waiver as well. It almost looked as if the truck was about to roll up on two wheels on one side, like one of those Joey Cheetwood Stunt Show tricks. I also see that there are 4 workers sitting in the front seat of the truck. Inside the front license plate frame was a white and green "Chivas" embossed vanity plate.

The driver obviously had no brains. He was laughing at something between himself and the others in the truck. I doubt there were 4 sets of seatbelts in the truck for all the passengers and driver. I further doubt the truck, and driver, were insured. I have absolutely no doubt that the truck was being piloted by a Highway A-Hole.