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Do not try to guess what the other driver expects you to do. Maintain your course and speed and let the other drivers work around you.

Last week, I was commuting home from work and I was about to enter the freeway portion of the trip. The service drive is somewhat above the freeway at that point, so I had a good view of the traffic that was already there. As I was coming down the ramp, I aimed for a spot just behind someone in the right lane. Unfortunately, they thought I was aiming for a spot in front of them. I think they were trying to be nice, so they slowed down to let me in.

But I wasn’t going fast enough to get in that spot. I couldn’t merge because the helpful car was right in my way, and I couldn’t slow down because there was someone just behind me, also wanted to enter the freeway. So I had to stomp on the accelerator and cut in front of the person before the short entrance lane ended. If I had some nice sporty car, that wouldn’t have been a problem. But I have a Buick. Not exactly suitable for quick maneuvers like that.

And that reminded me of a similar problem we had a number of years ago. Back at least a decade ago, my dad was driving the family back (eastbound) from a trip to visit my sister (who at the time was the only child of his who was married and out of the house). Part of the journey involved a rural two-lane road with a few long straightaways. The speed limit was 55 mph, and we were behind someone who was going slower. So dad pulled into the other lane (westbound) to pass the person.

The person was driving slowly, but not extremely slowly, so it took a few seconds to get next to the car. At that point, an oncoming car was approaching. Dad judged that there would not be time to get around the slow person before we crashed, so he slowed down to get back behind the slow person. Unfortunately, the slow person was trying to be nice and let dad in ahead of him (or was it a her? I don’t remember). So the oncoming car was even closer, but dad could not get back into the lane because the other car was trying to guess what dad wanted but was getting it wrong. After a cycle of slow down, speed up, slow down – matched exactly by the other car, we finally got back into the eastbound lane before the westbound car met us.

So if you ever see me driving and it seems like I’m not being courteous by slowing down or speeding up for other people, it’s not because I’m being mean. I’m just trying to avoid accidents.