Traffic

Look, ladies and gents, you cannot complain about traffic jams if you drive like a moron.
Now, everybody is entitled to get lost now and then, and this means you'll make a wrong turn, or drive 5 mph under the posted limit looking for a street sign. (Unfortunately, if you are lost in the District of Columbia, you'll find that street signs have been almost completely abolished, and the remaining ones have been camouflaged behind foliage.) This is life, and I can't fault anybody for being human. I recently drove from New York down to DC, along the turnpike and generally following I-95, and from what I've seen, drivers have reverted to inexcusable levels of general buffoonery.
Lets start with New York City traffic. The first problem here is that the majority of this traffic consists of New York City drivers. I could write volumes on this particular breed of jackass alone, but lets keep it to bullet points so I don't bore you all cross-eyed. A large percentage of back-ups in the five boroughs is caused simply whenever the roadway requires drivers to merge lanes.
New Yorkers are completely incapable of doing so in a civilized manner, but instead operate on the principal that the more macho driver always has right-of-way.
This results in a great deal of nut-flexing, often between balding Italian men in their Cadillacs and equally balding stockbrokers in BMWs. Between shouts of "ay yo, whats the matter wit ya?" and "Are you serious? This is clearly superior german sports sedan!" there exist drivers like me, young men in low slung Japanese imports, whose car is faster than both the assholes rides in question, but who never get to use this potential speed because nobody will ever fucking merge.
Here's how it works. Remember kindergarten, when we were collectively told all about sharing, and how it made the world go round? Well, that wasn't bullshit. In order to get everybody home faster, we're just going to have to share. This means: Take turns.
For example, you go. Then I go. Then the next car in your lane goes, then the next car in my lane goes. In this manner, the two lanes of traffic seamlessly join into one. Do this properly, and we don't even have to slow down. Which brings me to my next point: How to slow down on a highway.
O.k., so you're pacing the car in front of you allowing for a proper distance based on speed. (How much following distance should I allow? Well, take Drivers Ed., but this time don't sneak off between classes to smoke pot behind the school building.) The car in front of the car in front of the car in front of you slows down. Immediately every car in the line slams on the brakes, dropping speed quickly. But the first car in line will, inevitably, speed up again, leaving all of us other jackasses 15 miles under the speed limit now wasting fuel accelerating again. Clearly, Al Gore would frown on this. I'm with him, but there is a solution: Cover the brake.
Yes, take your foot OFF the accelerator (the right most pedal, its skinny). Move this foot over the brake pedal but, here's the key, don't push down on it until you KNOW you're going to have to stop. By avoiding flashing your brake lights at everyone behind you, you're simultaneously saving the environment and keeping traffic from coming to an unnecessary halt.
Lastly, I would like to comment on the difference between a yield sign and a stop sign. A stop sign is octagonal in shape, red in color, and clearly says "stop" in bold capital letters across its center. It means apply the brakes until the car ceases forward motion. A yield sign means that you are coming into a space where you will be required to merge (see above). Comparing the two last sentences I've written, we can clearly deduce that a yield sign does not equal a stop sign. One particular driver got these two confused on the last leg of my recent trip, so I figured everybody could benefit from a refresher. Do not, under any circumstances, come to a complete and unnecessary stop in the middle of an empty road when yielding is required. All too often, you will wind up with someones Toyota Corolla halfway up your trunk.
I'll just leave off with this: I have installed on my car a set of Hella Supertones, which generate one hundred and eighteen decibels of sound at my command, which this particular driver found out. I refer to these as the "horns of justice." If you can't drive, and fail at it in front of me, I will, with little or no remorse, deafen your dumb ass.