Several years ago, I was driving into Detroit to visit my sister-in-law and I saw an interesting thing:

The left lane was closed up ahead, and two truckers were driving side by side, one in the soon-to-be closed left lane, and the other to his right. I noticed the empty lane stretching far ahead of the semi in the left lane. At first I was puzzled — why wasn’t he moving ahead to close that gap — but then I realized the two were combining to maximize their speed by eliminating any merging ahead of them. I thought that was very cool, and decided I’d use that tactic myself.

And recently I had the opportunity in a very similar situation: The left lane was going to end about two miles ahead, and I going about 15 mph in the middle of three lanes, saw people zooming by on on my left. I realized that they would merge into my lane far ahead, right near the end of the left lane, and everyone in the middle lane would have to slow down to accomodate them. At the next break, I moved into the left lane and pulled alongside the person who’d been ahead of me. Once the merging ended ahead, my speed picked up considerably, as did the speed of everyone in the middle lane.

Glancing in the mirror, I saw an irate driver behind me. At first I felt a little sheepish, but then I realized I was doing exactly what she wanted to do: maximize my speed. The difference was, I didn’t want to do it

at the expense of everyone in the middle lane, merely at the expense of those who wanted to do it at the expense of those in the middle. I wasn’t making them go any slower than me, but I was preventing them from slowing me down so they could go faster than me.

Personally, I think it’s goofy to exceed the common speed (more on that some other time) but I’m not inclined to think much of it unless it’s at my expense.

And anyway, why _should_ they be in front of me?