I am an efficient driver. It is a point of pride that I get from point A to point B as directly as possible, as quickly as legally feasible, and with a minimum of fuel burned. So I am terribly, terribly tense when I drive in heavy traffic or through unfamiliar streets. I am tortured by the gap between what is possible and what I am achieving.
What’s worse is when I am trapped behind an inefficient driver - someone who goes slowly for no discernible reason (even if there are no cars in front of them!), someone who leaves their turn signal on after they’ve turned, someone who pauses overly long at intersections. Then it is not the inscrutable nature of the universe or the human race that tortures me, it is one particular person. Onto them I pour my rage, my scorn, and my silent urgings to go faster.
I was recently trapped behind an inefficient driver: they were going very slowly up Aurora, when I wanted to be going very fast. Aurora is a street, long and straight. I saw them, a white minivan, climbing a hill about a quarter mile ahead, and I knew they were going to be trouble. Even at that distance I could tell I was gaining on them
Change lanes, you say? Pheh! Changing lanes is for cheaters. At once, I was upon them.
It’s a curious thing, following someone slower than you. I don’t want to tailgate (it’s bad form), but neither does my mind let me follow at a polite distance. So I was riding up on them, and they were keeping steady to their pace, and I was getting frustrated. I shifted slightly in my lane, like a man fidgeting in his seat, and looked ahead of them. There was nothing there but open road. I got more frustrated.
And so the miles passed. The exit I wanted was coming up - I engaged my blinker. The van did the same, and slowed down, if that were possible. It hesitated, briefly, on the lip of the exit, and then plunged in. I followed closely. My thoughts were rage, and scorn, and a charitable contempt for someone so obviously unsuited for the road.
Then the van turned, and I saw for an instant the face of the driver - a woman of late middle age, nervous: eyes wide, mouth tight, head darting between left and right, openly lost and searching for the correct way.
I’m usually a proud man, but there are moments when I’m ashamed of myself.