Saturday, June 14, 2008

The Catch-up Game

My job is a good 20 miles from my house on mostly straight stretches of road. For the most part, I leave cruise control on since the speed limit doesn't change. I've noticed an interesting behavior (among others) that has me baffled.

The speed limit is 55mph so I normally go about 60 and stay in the right lane so that all of the insane people who want to drive 90 may pass. If most of the people in the right lane are going 45 then I'll switch to the left lane and ride it out. Sometimes when this happens the person in the right lane will speed up and get ahead of me. Afterwards they slow down and I catch up since I'm going a constant speed. As soon as I catch up they take off again. This will go on for miles at a time and I have no idea why. Does it hurt their pride for me to get ahead of them? Do they have a fear of being passed? I would like to stop them and ask the reason for their ridiculous behavior, but I get the feeling they may be hostile people and probably are opposed to being pulled over by a pedestrian. I think that finding the answer to this behavior may explain a lot more about the reason people around here are terrible drivers.

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