Helping the 18 wheelers

Dh and I have taught ds2 the importance of courtesy on the road. He recently got his driver's license and he just loves it when the big truckers signal a "thank you" when he's helped them merge into traffic.

I love it too, it can really make my day when someone is nice to me on the road, instead of being mean and nasty.

This morning, I had the opportunity to help a trucker merge over. I had to merge over, too, I was behind him, so I finally got my chance to merge and then I flashed my headlights to let him know I was going to hold back the traffic in my lane for him. Unfortunately it took him another minute or two, since cars were swerving around me, into the lane ahead of me, totally not paying attention to the fact that he was needing to get over. He had to get over two lanes and had just under a mile (8/10ths) to do it in. Neither of us could not have gotten over any earlier because of the way this section of the freeway merges. When he finally merged, he flashed his lights at me. My dh and I always called them "brake taps" but that never made since to us since why would they tap on their brakes?

So I got curious this morning and I searched on Google for what those lights could be. First I found a really awful site, full of mean, road raging truckers seething with anger over the rest of us morons. But then I found Trucker Dude's blog with an entry entitled Merging. The entire entry was very interesting to me, but this snippet was of the most interest... hang on, I'm still connecting at 19,200bps, AND my computer is slower than molasses, this totally SUCKS. It takes at least THREE whole minutes for Blogger to log me in!! SCREAM!!!

And I'm still WAITING for the blog entry to load, so I can copy the small paragraph that explains what those lights are. Okay, finally, here it is: "But the flip side is that if you do slow to allow me to merge with you, I'll almost always thank you by flashing my clearance lights a couple of times or turn on the 4-way flashers for a few seconds. Many truckers do this and you may have wondered what it was about--now you know." Click on the link Merging above to read the entire entry.

Very informative reading and we should be courteous and considerate of all the truckers out there, after all they can easily crush us in our "four wheelers" like an aluminum can if we aren't careful.

And I got "my" parking space this morning. So I was happier. How silly for something like getting to park in "my" spot to make me happier. Well, that and the trucker thanking me. The main thing about my parking spot is it is under two olive trees. That provides shade, which keeps the temperature in the vehicle to a reasonable temperature, say 150°F. If I park in an unshaded area, it is more like 250°F with the seats and steering wheel blistering hot. "My" parking spot *IS* first come, first serve, but I still view it as my own.

Time for bed!! After my bedtime, actually.

Until next time.