If you’ve read my blog for long, you know that I do a lot of driving. We live in the central U.S. and frankly air travel sucks in this part of the country. The closest airport is in Wichita, which means that before and after every plane trip, I have a minimum one hour drive. If we’re traveling anywhere other than Chicago, Denver, Dallas, or Atlanta…we’re relegated to traveling through one of those airports to our final destination. That is, if we’re lucky we’ve only got two plane rides to contend with on the outbound trip. It’s not uncommon that we have three or four planes. That means three or four possibilities of delays and other icky parts of air travel.

We would take the train, but Amtrak goes through twice a day, once eastbound (at a convenient 2:19am) and once westbound (at an equally convenient 3:20am). Train travel in the US is also nearly as expensive as air travel and is guaranteed to take a long time. Often days to get anywhere from our part of the world.

We have bus service that also comes through twice a day, in the wee hours of the morning. Just as convenient as the other two modes of transport.

So we drive. And we drive a lot. As my kids like to say, we drive a lot, a lot. And then we drive some more.

When you drive, you notice things. After spending enough hours behind the windshield, you start to wonder how all the other people on the road ever made it through their driver’s ed classes. In Kansas and Colorado it’s clearly posted that you drive in the rightmost lane (remember folks…US, we drive on the correct, erm, right side of the road) unless you are going to pass. Then you go into a leftward lane, pass the slowpoke, and return to the right lane. It’s simple, it’s courteous, and it’s logical.

A large percentage of the folks in Kansas and Colorado follow this simple method of driving. Right lane drive, left lane pass. There are jerks who hang out in the left lane. There are people who forget or get confused who hang out in the left lane. It happens, but not all that often.

Unfortunately, I have to drive through Nebraska, Missouri, and Oklahoma to reach many of the final destinations that intrigue the Hectic Clan. That’s where my ire is raised. Apparently, the people who drive in those states don’t have any sense of passing on the left. The drive in the left lane, sometimes 20 miles below the speed limit. The get over in the left and clog up the orderly progression of those of us driving the speed limit. They even impact those who might drive a wee bit faster than the posted speeds. I wouldn’t really know about that from personal experience (wink, wink).

But the goofballs on the interstate highways who are driving in the left lane at a rate well below the flow of traffic drive me nuts. They create a hazard, as cars whip back and forth between lanes trying to get past the slow ones on the right, then the slow ones on the left. The impede the orderly flow of traffic. They disturb other drivers. In short, they ought to have jerk driver pasted to their bumper or trunk (boot for you Commonwealth English speakers).

So there’s my rant. If you’re in your car and your driving on a multiple-lane highway, stay in the outside lane unless you are going to pass somebody. Then pass the other vehicle and get back in the outside lane. It’s not the law everywhere, but it’s just good manners.

You do want to have good manners, don’t you?