I was getting on the Taconic yesterday afternoon, on one of those long runway entrances that plops you in the right lane just past a right lane exit. It is an exit where many people get off, so it is generally pretty easy to get onto the highway because the people driving past the exit all move into the left lane. And 99% of the time they stay in the left lane well beyond the entrance. Of course, once in a while you get a less-than-conscientious driver traveling in the left lane when there are no people in the right lane getting off or just driving slow, and this less-than-conscientious person in the left lane decides to move to the right lane for no obvious reason. And on days like this, that person in the left lane times their journey to the right lane such that they arrive in the right lane just where I, the schmuck trying to get on the highway, am going to merge in off the entrance ramp. I really hate when that happens, especially when the less-than-conscientious left-to-right lane driver doesn’t even use their blinker.

But here’s the funny part, the woman yesterday (with whom I had this misfortune to share the road for the next 20 minutes as she increased and decreased her speed and changed lanes schizophrenically) had a vanity plate. Want to know what it was?

HAVMERCY

Hmmmm. Isn’t that ironic?

Or maybe it’s not, ever since that song I’m never totally sure what is ironic, what is coincidence, and what is just crappy luck.

I know I kvetch about this a lot. I could use a couple terabytes of online storage to document all of my tales of driving woe, but…man…why? Why can’t we actually…duh…have mercy on our fellow drivers and not make random, unannounced lane changes that could easily end in a deadly fiery crash?