The problem is that not everyone understands the rules, which in Mass are different from everywhere else.

OK, now... you have forced me to jump to the defense of East Coast drivers.

Admittedly, my East Coast experience is limited to just two cross country trips (New Hampshire to Alaska), one year apart. But both times I was amazed and impressed by the courtesy and by the "lane awareness" of the drivers on the freeways.

In rush hour traffic in Boston (four lanes each direction, bumper to bumper, occasional spurts to the utterly mad velocity of 25-30 MPH) time after time I saw people "trapped" in one of the inner lanes turn on a blinker to change lanes and thus get to an exit, and immediately the person behind and to the right would slow, open up a gap for him to get in.

But most amazing of all was when the freeways "opened up" with less traffic. Average speed would be (like everywhere else) speed limit +10MPH. My average speed was somewhat (not a lot) higher than that -- my near-invisible ShoWagon equipped with V1 radar detector made me feel pretty secure. It was so amazing to me to look ahead and see traffic lined up nose to tail literally for miles -- and all of it in the right hand lane! Occasionally someone would pull out to pass, and then tuck right back into the right lane. If I caught up to someone in the left lane that was passing a line of trucks, almost always he would slip in between a couple of them to let me by, then come back out and continue passing himself.

This was such a refreshing change of behavior from the drivers in my part of the country that I was just simply amazed.

It should be noted that the further West I got, the less prevalent this kind of driving became. By the time I got to Idaho, it was business as usual, and California and Oregon were... oh, don't get me started.

So, if you're driving on the East Coast, count your blessings.

tanstaafl.