Passing Out

Everybody likes to kvetch about the bad drivers they encounter, no matter where they may live. (Too many of those OTHER people drive like idiots...and, have you noticed, they're everywhere!)

We all have our pet peeve. Mine is tailgaters. I wish them evil when they finally get off my ass and pass me.

But I digress.

I've noticed a syndrome that appears regularly in drivers from the male half of our species. Female drivers...not so much (but, in fairness, occasionally).

I call it the "getting passed by a chick in a Toyota syndrome," but any compact car will apply.

I was taught to drive by my father, who told me "if you're gonna go, then get your butt out there and go." Years later, a cop friend told me I could safely go five miles an hour over the speed limit - that's the range of error of their equipment or something. So I am not a - ahem - timid driver.

I've had a lot of opportunity to observe the behavior caused by this syndrome during my twice-daily, 30-minute commute into downtown and home again.

It happened again this morning. I'm tooling along at +5 mph with the rest of the late rush hour traffic, when I pass some dude who's been dawdling in the right-hand lane. Who immediately speeds up to pull ahead of me.

At this point, it will go one of two ways. Either he'll stay at his new speed - just ahead of me - or he'll doze off again after a few miles. I pass him again, he wakes up, behavior repeats.

I think the suddenly zippy guy might be the smarter of the two. Or maybe the other guy is just stoned.

Either way, my little car and I have obviously threatened their male ego. It's happened enough over the years that I believe it qualifies as a syndrome.

I also have a theory about the ratio of size of vehicle to size of genitalia. But I'll leave that for another day. (Though if you drive a Hummer, honey......)