My Commute Is Work, Too

If you live in Massachusetts, the following probably won’t come as a shock: According to this article, our fair commonwealth ranked the second lowest in the contiguous 48 states and DC on a written driver’s test administered to more than 5,000 licensed drivers. (Rhode Island was lowest.) Rounding out the bottom five were Northeast neighbors New Jersey, New York and DC.

If you don’t live in Massachusetts, I’m here to tell you that everything you’ve heard about us as drivers is true: We’re rude. We’re impulsive. And we will flip you off -- sometimes for no reason.

It’s not just confined to the big city, either. My ride back and forth to Monster takes me along a bucolic two-lane country road dotted with farm stands and livestock grazing contentedly in the fields; it’s everything you’d think the New England countryside could be. It also includes tailgaters, slowpokes and those lovely people who like to cut you off despite there being no cars behind you. It’s only 18 miles, but some days it feels much longer. Maybe I ought to get some books on tape, like Norma suggested in a February blog post.

The tailgaters are my worst pet peeve. I used to take my foot off the gas to hold them up, but as I grow older (and hopefully wiser), I’ve learned to pull over and let them go have their accident somewhere else. But I still don’t know how they think they’re going to get there faster by riding up my butt. And as I draw closer to Maynard, I have to remember to sheathe my itchy middle finger and stifle my horn, as I could be getting into an altercation with someone I see in the Monster hallways every day.

Could you have a road rage problem? Take this test to find out.

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