Hey, you driving idiot, stop blocking the box

When Perimeter-area cops recently announced a crackdown on motorists who “Block the Box,” I did a fist pump and chortled a bit. Finally! Blocking the Box describes the idiots who see a yellow light and still inch into an intersection as the light turns red. And then they sit and sit and create gridlock.

This happens when traffic is oozing and motorists are seething, having endured several revolutions of traffic lights at the same intersection. Box Blockers are not going to wait for another light because their time is more valuable than the 35 cars they end up obstructing.

That, in turn, causes drivers in the cross lanes to think less of their fellow man and then they do unto others when it’s their turn.

“It causes a residual backup,” said Sandy Springs police Capt. Steve Rose, who for four decades has witnessed metro Atlanta’s roads get more clogged as the collective blood pressure soars. “Sometimes I wonder how we got to be at the top of the food chain.”

Well said, Captain. Please, go on.

“I think rudeness is much worse,” he said. “They’re selfish. They want their schedule to be a priority over someone elses’s.”

Increasingly, we are an impatient, thoughtless and selfish brood. Of course, some are worse than others.

Many people agree with me on this subject. When the AJC wrote a story on this a few weeks ago one commenter, aptly calling himself Logical Dude, wrote that “ejection cranes” should hover above key intersections, swoop in and carry off miscreants. Those who were more old school simply called for flogging or stockades.

For years, I’ve advocated allowing cops to pull over such offenders into nearby parking lots, where they shoot out two tires. No one has two spares — remember, I’ve thought this one through.

Sadly, police in Dunwoody, Brookhaven and Sandy Springs will not get that innovative. Instead, they’ll employ a mixture of tickets, warnings and stern looks.

But such methods often fall on deaf ears.

Rose once stopped a guy passing other cars on a one-lane, curving entrance ramp to I-285. The driver, as you might imagine, was in a hurry and his mission was obviously more important than the saps he was passing.

The driver, who was miffed, waved his hand at the cop and said, “I’m late, just write the ticket.”

So Rose did just that. But not in a hurry.

Any other pet peeves or examples where folks are displaying their innate transportational selfishness?

Forget trying to merge into a crowded lane, Rose said. “People take it as a personal insult if you want to get in. You change into a whole different being behind the wheel. You can take a Sunday school teacher but she’ll be damned if you’re going to cut in front of her.”

Conversely, Dunwoody Police Chief Billy Grogan said his pet peeve is waiting patiently in a line and then watching drivers pull up to the front to muscle their way in. That one is everybody’s pet peeve.

If there has been an especially long wait and someone is especially egregious, then I’ll keep close to the guy in front of me to not allow space for a lane-cutter to get in.

I asked Grogan whether he lets them in and he laughed. “It depends,” he said.

Once he said, he was driving in his unmarked car and watched a guy start to squeeze into his lane. He thought, “They’re going to hit me if I don’t move.” He slowed to avoid a wreck. And then pulled the guy over.

But, the chief added, “I could spend all of my time pulling people over.”

That might be true. In 2014, Safeco Insurance did surveys of 10 large American cities and found Atlanta to be third when it comes to discourteous drivers.

About the same time, Auto-Vantage, a roadside assistance service, did a “Road Rage Survey” and found Atlanta was second rudest, behind Houston and ahead of Baltimore, Washington DC and Boston. In 2009, Atlanta was fourth.

The 2014 survey found that Atlanta drivers were most likely to acknowledge tailgating someone and seeing others speeding (it is always the other guy). And, get this: Atlanta was “most likely to admit purposely bumping another driver in reaction to perceived poor driving.”

Gotta be the NASCAR influence.

Incidentally, Portland was most courteous.

After researching this story and increasing my ire because of all the impatience and selfishness out there, I went home to find a certified letter. In it was a violation notice and two photos showing a gray minivan making a left turn at a busy Marietta intersection through a pink light. (OK, the video shows it was yellow until the van, going 20 mph in a stream of cars, hit the intersection. The van driver continued the turn.)

Without publicly admitting (or denying) any such violation, the notice suggests I’m one of those impatient jerks who I’m griping about.

I will say I’ll soon donate $70 to Marietta’s civic efforts. And I will add that at least I didn’t block an intersection.

In 2014, Safeco Insurance did surveys of 10 large American cities and found Atlanta to be third when it comes to discourteous drivers.