Saturday, July 18, 2009

Texas Drivers!

When on the open highway, Texans have a few unique characteristics. And I'm not just stereotyping, I've put myself in the habit of not looking at plates. I can immediately recognize someone who is from Texas. Look at their plates and 8 times out of 10 they are from Texas. 1 time out of 10 they're from Kalifornia.

Cat and Mouse:
A Texan will come up behind you like a bat out of hell, then get right on your ass, but will not pass. If you gun it up to 80 or so to put yourself a hundred yards ahead of him, he will gun it to 90 to catch up with you, get back on your ass, and stay there.

If you happen to get into traffic and play the passing game for a while, he'll probably fall way behind you. Within 10 minutes or so you'll completely lose sight of him in your rearview mirror. 20 minutes later, here he comes, zooming past you at 90. At this point, he'll either get in front of you and slow down (see Pass and Slow), or he'll get out of sight in front of you. If he gets out of sight in front of you, chances are 50% that you'll pass him like he's standing still later. Then we go back to step 1.

None Shall Pass:
Texans HATE to have another vehicle in front of them, except for when they're playing Cat and Mouse. If you attempt to pass a Texan, they will speed up. It never fails. NEVER. The only way to pass a Texan is to speed up 7 - 10mph and take the chance of getting a ticket. If you do happen to get past a Texan, they will either begin Cat and Mouse or Pass and Slow. This WILL happen to you if you pass a Texan and don't want to change your speed to about 7 - 10mph faster than you were going before.

Pass and Slow:
This is a trademark Texan move. Like I said, Texans HATE to have another vehicle in front of them. When a Texan is finished playing Cat and Mouse or if you happen to overtake him and get past his None Shall Pass, then you'll fall victim to Pass and Slow.

The Texan will decide that he wants to go about 5mph faster than you. He'll pass you (without using his turn signal of course), and he will get back into the right lane just soon enough to make you have to tap your breaks. In other words, he'll cut you off. Here's the kicker. He'll then slow down about 1-2mph SLOWER than you! Yeah. He will.

So what do you do? Go past him? See None Shall Pass and Cat and Mouse.

You would think that driving from STL to Madison and back you wouldn't run into too many Texans. Texans are like West Nile, there's some everywhere you go.

Here's the worst part. I don't think they realize they do any of the above. But they almost all do when on the open highway. In fact, when they do a Pass and Slow and you pass them, maintaining your speed and not cutting them off, they get pissed and they think you got in front of them and slowed down! It's true!

Next time you see one of these maneuvers, take a look at the plate. I betcha it will be Texas!

2 comments:

Bovino said...

I dunno about Texas, but driving here from Jersey we saw a lot of the extreme speed up, then slow down type of stuff. It's like people can't decide to go the speed limit so they speed like crazy then get scared and drop to 10MPH below the limit in some sort of bizarre compensation.

Ariesgeek said...

@ Bovino: EXACTLY! Check the plates on those and they're probably Texas.