STRANGER THAN FICTION: OTHER MOTORISTS' DRIVING WORLD'S PROBLEM

Maybe it's just because I've got horrendous PMS right now, but I've become ultra-sensitive to other people's faults.

The Other Half has been suffering immensely from it. I was ironing some clothes in my feeling-fat robe this morning when he walked out of the bedroom putting the finishing touches on his tie.

"You look so cute this morning," he chirped.

I felt my face grow hot.

"DON'T PATRONIZE ME!" I screamed. "It's obvious to everyone that I'm nothing but a big blob of fat with acne and stupid hair!"

He reeled from the shock and then scurried out the door like the patronizing cockroach he was.

Poor Mr. Half. He didn't know what he was getting into with the whole PMS thing, and the older I get, the worse it gets. It's time for me to admit that perhaps the problem isn't the world's, but mine.

Ouch.

One problem that definitely IS the world's is the proliferation of lousy drivers in our day and age. It's easy to notice this when one drives 30 miles to work and 30 miles home on Interstate 55 five days a week, plus around town during the day.

They say recognition of the problem is the first step toward cure, so perhaps a walk down lousy-driver lane would make the world a better place. Shall we?

-- The Passing Lane Addict. This person HAS to be in the passing lane no matter if he intends to pass to just drive 45 mph all the way from St. Louis to Memphis. The right lane is for driving along in your automobile, the left lane is for passing. It's that simple.

So don't go along at 65 mph in the passing lane, cruise up alongside someone doing the same in the driving lane and trap all the intelligent drivers in a 3-mile-long line behind your foolish self.

-- The Stop Sign Ignoramus. Remember those little books we all studied to get our driver's licenses? Maybe my memory is failing me, but I thought they gave the four-way stop rule, which states whoever approaches a four-way stop first should go first. If two cars approach at the same time, the driver on the right should go first.

It DOESN'T say that you should approach a four-way stop, glance at the other drivers, determine that none of them could POSSIBLY be in more of a hurry than you are, and zoom through the intersection. The four-way stop by the Jackson Post Office is best for an example of this.

The other extreme is the Stop-Sign Miss Manners. If four of these types approach at the same time, you'll sit there all day while they figure out who should go first.

-- Slow Sam/Sally. Wouldn't it be great if everyone had an unlimited amount of time to do things? Slow Sam/Sally does! He or she drives down a two-lane stretch doing 20 mph, 25 mph -- whatever feels right that day.

In the meantime, those of us with lives are piling up behind them, praying that their blinkers will come on any minute and they will turn out of your way. Inevitably, when they DO turn, it's onto the street where you're headed.

Actually, all that time on the roads behind Slow Sam/Sally has given me a lot of time to think. Let's all get together and lobby for a new kind of driving test. The instructor would spend a few hours with you and look for any of these violations. If you didn't commit any, you could set any speed limit you wanted for any stretch of road.

Drivers, unite!

~Heidi Nieland is a member of the Southeast Missourian news staff.