Pop Quiz

Today's commute home was a real killer, so here is a pop quiz based on the first few miles of my mis-adventure. Let's see how you do!

1. True or False. You are driving in a lane that is an on-ramp (merge lane) to a very busy expressway. You should immediately brake, make sure to come to a complete stop, look over your shoulder, and wait for someone to let you in (across the solid white line, since you are not even in the straight-away part of the lane, yet).

2. True or False. You are several cars behind the driver in #1. You should peel out of line, drive on the shoulder past all the other cars in front of you, cut back over into the merge lane and begin your merge process.

3. True or False. You are driving in the right lane on the expressway, and to your right is a merge lane (on-ramp). A vehicle turns on their left directional (that blinkie thing) to indicate they plan to move over into the space in your lane directly in front of you. In response to this signal, you should immediately speed up to close the gap and cut off the merging driver.

4. True or False. After cutting off the merging driver, you should immediately speed up some more so you can, without a directional (there's that blinkie thing again) to indicate your intentions, quickly swerve from the driving lane into the merge lane so you not only scare the bajeezus out of the other driver, but also so you can speed to the end of the lane, then cut off some other drivers so you are now 3 cars ahead of where you started.

5. True or False. This was a rare occurance in my daily commute experience.

6. True or False. The situation got better when I tried to merge the remaining 3 lanes to the left I need to merge (yes, every day).

If you answered True to any one of these questions (especially #s 5 or 6), please do me a favor and stay out of the DC area for, oh, the next 15 years or so, okay? I'd really appreciate it.

Thank you.