It's the beginning of Memorial Day weekend. Not much planned, however. Saturday evening I'll be helping Iodynamics partners Mike and Chadd install Linux on a machine and add a hard drive to another machine. On Sunday, Christine's family will be coming up for a picnic. On Monday, we'll be going to Salt Lake to barbecue with my family for my brother's birthday.

Combating road rage

If you're ever driving on the freeway and you (intentionally or unintentionally) really piss someone else off, the following story may provide you a valuable tip which could save your life.

On Thursday, I was driving back from Salt Lake City on Interstate 15. There is currently construction near Clearfield which narrows the roadway from three lanes to two. Just before the lane constriction, I was passing a group of cars on the right because they were all in the left lane and going slow. The leading vehicle of the pack was a newer model 4-door black Chevrolet pickup truck with a safari rack on top. As I pulled past this truck, it began to speed up. I was still going faster, so I signaled to change lanes and then proceeded to change into the left lane.

Apparently, this really irked the driver of the pickup truck. He immediately began flashing all lights available to him to convey his displeasure that I would get in front of him. This didn't just last a few seconds, but went on for probably 20-30 seconds. After about 10 seconds I began to wonder if he was upset or if he had inadvertently triggered some kind of alarm system he couldn't shut off.

After the light show, I ran into the lane constriction. My friend in the pickup truck was tailgating me relentlessly and wasn't happy when I slowed down to let some people in front of me. This resulted in a repeat performance of the light show. He was clearly unhappy he had to share the road with me.

Unfortunately for him, he was stuck behind me for a few miles because of the construction and congestion.

When the traffic opened up a bit, the angry driver successfully positioned his truck next to my car and stayed there. I could tell he was waiting for me to look over, so I didn't. He couldn't stay next to me for long because there was a semi trailer in front of him going much slower than me. I watched in my rear-view mirror as he was sucked back at least five or six car lengths. I figured that was the end of the black Chevy.

About five miles later, I could see him rapidly approaching again in my rear-view mirror. I figured if he was going to get alongside me again, I should have something planned. I considered a few obscene gestures or a making a hand-written sign that said "Awesome light show, dude!" In the end, I did neither because I didn't want to stoop to obscene gestures and I didn't have any broad-tipped markers to make a legible sign with. I had to come up with another course of action if I was going to do anything.

Sure enough, the black Chevy pickup pulled alongside me and matched my speed. This time I glanced over to see a 20-year-old guy and his cute young girlfriend each flipping me the bird. That was when I set my retaliation into motion.

I reached over to the passenger seat and calmly raised my digital camera and brought the driver of the truck into the photo frame. He saw me do this and quickly converted his middle finger exhibition into a friendly wave in time to be captured by my camera.

Following this high-speed photo session, he fell back into traffic behind me and nothing happened after that.

Perhaps other drivers will reconsider their behavior when they know their behavior could be captured for posterity. I know I'll be packing a camera with me a lot more often now.

Here's the photo I took:

Tom enters the 20th century

As an early birthday present, I gave my brother Tom a computer. He's never really used one before, so it's a new experience.