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

You have taken on a difficult job!!

I agree with some of what you say, but I think that some of your experiences may have been atypical.

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.

Camping in the left lane with cruise control set to speed limit +2 is terrible in Washington State, worse only in Oregon. I have approached cars at 5AM on I-5 in Oregon -- no other cars in sight -- camped in the passing lane. My theory is that it is easier for the driver to sight over the driver's side fender and line it up with that yellow stripe. West coast loses this one in a big way. Some of it is made worse in Washington by a higher proportion of left-lane exits -- bad traffic engineering.

Things may be better in Mass because such ill behavior has been met with more aggressive responses over time -- tailgating, high beam flashing. Anyhow, it it is true that folks aren't as brain dead.

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.

There are a few really nasty highway intersections in Boston (the old I-93 northbound split that will be retired by the Big Dig) that rank as the worst anywhere and where folks have developed altruistic merging behaviors. Overall, though, I'd still rate Boston as the capital of antisocial, drive-like-hell-and-execute-a-no-eye-contact-forcible-merge-at-the-last-moment merge behavior. I still drive in Boston a few times a year (after driving there 1969-1988) and can contrast it with Seattle where *generally* people begin a cooperative merge maneuver when first they see a "X lane closed ahead" sign. I must assume you didn't get in the merge for the Callahan Tunnel!

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.

Better. Unlike Washington/Oregon, the Massachusetts DMV may no longer issue licenses to the deceased!

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.

Agree re: The West, but I still feel like your eastern experience was atypical....but this is from a refugee!