Stoneage Ramblings

By John R. Stone

Recently I wrote about things I had experienced, survived and learned over 60 some years of driving.

On a recent trip to the Eastern United States in February I had several more “lessons” although I’m not entirely sure what I have learned from them other than the fact that Mary and I were fortunate God was looking out for us.

On the first leg on our return trip we were heading north toward Virginia from North Carolina on the freeway. It was early in the trip because we hadn’t stopped for our traditional “road” coffee for Mary and hot chocolate for me.

We spotted an exit that looked good for that stop and after carefully double checking on what was going on behind me I moved from the left lane to the right and then from the right lane to the exit ramp.

Varooom! Right beside me was a white Chevy pickup kicking up dirt and gravel in the air inches from the passenger door. He pulled ahead of me off the dirt and onto the ramp, sailed through a stop sign and off down a sideroad. Where in the world had he come from? Was he running from police?

The only possible answer is that he was passing cars on the shoulder of the right lane of the freeway, I had carefully checked the other two lanes and had seen no white pickup. And he was traveling very fast.

Somehow he never touched us.

The next day we were in Illinois again on the freeway and traffic was light. We were driving along in the right hand lane and came upon a slower vehicle. I waited to pull out to go around this vehicle but a young lady in a black Toyota Camry was right on my tail. She was driving so carelessly I worried if I pulled out first she might not notice and would hit me.

After she pulled out and was ahead of me I pulled out. No sooner than when I was in the lane behind her had she decided to hit her brakes. At first I thought she was brake checking me  because she thought I was driving too slow in the right hand lane. Then she hit the brakes harder.

I hit my brakes and pulled to the left onto the shoulder. I wasn’t sure I would stop without hitting her. I didn’t know what she was doing but I also didn’t want to get rear ended by someone flying down the fast lane. And it was a good thing I did because the car behind me needed some of the room I had created.

Then the young lady in the Toyota, who was by this time at a dead stop in the fast lane on freeway where the speed limit was 70, turned on her turn signal, waited for a couple of vehicles to pass by in the right hand lane, and then took an exit.

She had gotten caught in the left lane when her exit came up and wasn’t going to miss it!

Those are the kind of people who you wish had been seen by police at the time. And you wish that police would take their licenses, cut them into little strips, and tell them to think as they walked home to start the licensing process for driving an automobile all over again.

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Otherwise on the road the trip was uneventful. What I had actually feared most in advance was driving from Richmond,  VA to the Washington D.C. area one morning during rush hour. I knew it would be crowded and busy.

It was as expected, traffic was running 10 to 15 miles per hour over the speed limit, which was at first 55 then 65. This was true in all lanes, first three lanes, then four and then five as we got closer to DC.

Weaving in between vehicles were those going faster, quite a bit faster in some cases.

Every now and then I would see a state trooper in a pullout on the highway just sitting there. I suspect they didn’t want to start a chase in crowded conditions like that, a chase under those conditions would create even more risk.

So my newest lessons are: stay off I95, watch out for vehicles passing others on the shoulder, and if I see a young lady in a black Camry with Illinois license plates, get off the road!