A Commute

While those of you in the Pacific Northwest understand how poor drivers are, I know some of you don't believe me when I say that drivers here are the worst I have come across in the United States. Sure, folks complain a lot about drivers in New York or Los Angeles, but those are aggressive drivers, and their behavior is pretty predictable-leave enough space for a car to merge into your lane, and it'll happen.

When I do drive to work, it's a 4.3-mile commute each way. With no traffic it takes about 10 minutes to get to work, but when there is traffic, the same route takes about 45 minutes, which can be shortened to 30 by taking an alternate route. I wait until after most of the traffic has died down, but by no means does that mean there aren't poor drivers on the road. For example, my drive home last night (yes I'm a grad student so I work weekends):

Mile 0.4: The driver in front of me stops at a green light for no reason, and stays stopped while the light goes from green to yellow to red 5 seconds later.
Mile 0.9: A driver with a green light waves a pedestrian to cross the intersection in front of the car (Seattle drivers are notorious for screwing up right of way at the expense of safety). There are two left turn lanes at the intersection. I'm in the left one, and the person in the right turn lane always cuts in front of my lane in the turn itself and after the turn starts driving in the lane where the left left turn lane turns into instead of the lane the right left turn lane turns into (2 lanes per direction on that 4-lane road).
Mile 1.6: There's a bus stopped at the bus stop in the right lane, and I'm driving on the left lane. All of a sudden the car in front of me slams on the brakes and allows everyone in the right lane behind the bus to merge into the left lane until the bus moves again. (Seattle drivers are notorious for screwing up right of way at the expense of safety, again)
Mile 2.4: I'm behind a car going 25 in a 35 zone so I move into the other lane to pass, but as soon as I pull alongside the car, the other driver all of a sudden starts going 35.
Mile 3.4: Same as mile 2.4, except someone going 25 in a 40 zone.
Mile 3.8: At this intersection, the road I'm on has a left turn lane in both directions. However, most drivers use this as an opportunity to expand their own lane into the left turn lane while going straight through the intersection and to continue using the opposite direction's left turn lane as part of their own lane.
Mile 4.3: At the turn into the complex I'm living in, the middle turning lane has a clear demarcation for when each direction has a left turn (instead of fair use for both directions). However, this doesn't stop the car opposite me to use my left turn lane to get into their left turn lane while I'm approaching the turn with my indicator on.

While Seattle driving is bad, not everything else is-like these pictures I took when I went to Grand Teton national park earlier this month:

(Click to Enlarge)

(Click to Enlarge)

Edit: and now, for the second time in the last 4 months, someone has managed to hit my parked car...