In my recent column about driving more slowly to get better fuel mileage — and live a saner life, instead of rushing around every second — I boasted that in two weeks I had a tally of zero rear-endings and zero raised middle fingers.
That almost changed on my way in to work today.
I was eastbound at the point where you have to take a ramp — with a series of merges — to get from Route 422 to the Schuylkill Expressway.
In front of me was a small camper trailer from Vermont with a sign in the rear window, “The Portable Ghetto.” Cute.
He was tooling along at 45 mph. The speed limit on the ramp, if I recall correctly, is 30 mph. So we were already exceeding it by 15 mph.
But that wasn’t fast enough for the silver-blue 18-wheeler behind me. He roared up to what seemed like inches of my rear bumper and stayed there.
At a point where traffic comes in from the right, the trucker began to lay on the horn. Technically, I don’t see that merge lane as a right lane. It’s only 200 yards or so before you have to get back left.
But at the sound of the horn, the poor guy in the trailer began to move right … just as the truck driver behind me also swerved right and accellerated. He was probably flooring it.
The trailer swayed, the trucker braked.
I braked, too, fearful that the truck, which had an open bed and no load, would jack-knife into me.
As soon as there was an opening between me and the small trailer that he could get through, the trucker veered left again and roared off. I tried to get his license plate number, but I couldn’t make it out, he was moving ahead so quickly.
I don’t know about the poor guy from Vermont — welcome to Philly! — but my heart was pounding.
GreenSpace - her column about how to reduce your carbon footprint in everyday life - appears every other Monday in Health & Science.
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