The friendliest drivers in Nebraska

After spending several weeks driving around Lincoln back in May when my wife Tammy had her heart surgery there, I came to a conclusion about the drivers in our capital city. I have decided they are the friendliest motorists in all of Nebraska!
How do I know? Because no matter what part of town I was in or what kind of street I was driving on they followed me extremely closely. 
I figure they were doing that so that if I got into an accident (such as, say, a rear-end collision) or had any kind of trouble while driving, they would be right there to lend a hand and perhaps dial 911 if I needed it. 
It gave me such a warm and welcomed feeling to know they were right there behind me, just inches from my rear bumper if I needed them.
In trying to understand where this spirit of motoring hospitality originated, I have decided it must result from all that tailgating they do during home Husker games, if you know what I mean! (Editor: Insert winky face emoji here.)
This little anecdote came to mind recently when I attended that highway safety meeting put on by our county highway department and the Nebraska Department of Transportation. I had the opportunity to share my experience with the group which included two representatives of NDOT who live and work in Lincoln. The sarcasm was not lost on them in the slightest.
Seriously though, there are few things other drivers do that irritate me more than tailgating, partly because it is one of the chief causes of accidents. I was taught when learning to drive back in the days when cars had 8-track players (Kids, ask your grandparents about this), that you should leave one car length of distance between your car and the car ahead of you for every 10 mph of speed. That means if I’m traveling at 60 mph, six cars should be able to fit into the space between my car and the car in front of me. More recently experts have been suggesting drivers follow the 3-Second Rule which says when the car in front of you passes a certain point, it should be three seconds before your car reaches that same point, to give you time to react in the event something happens ahead of you. Incidentally, because of their weight it takes big trucks much longer to stop than passenger vehicles, so pulling right in front of them is an extremely foolish thing to do.
One of the things that really annoys me about tailgating is that it is so senseless. How many times on my 15-mile commute to work have I had some impatient driver ride my bumper and then pass me, only to have me pull up right behind him at the stoplight in town? In the end, for all his Dale Earnhardt driving bravado he gained, what, maybe 15 seconds on me?
I was also gratified to learn that I’m not alone in being annoyed by something drivers often do that is most often seen in city driving. I’m not sure what the official name of the violation is but I call it “changing lanes in the middle of an intersection.” 
I know for sure -- because I’ve asked law enforcement officers about it -- that the law says when turning onto a four-lane street you should turn into the nearest lane to you. But what do many drivers do when turning onto a four- or six-lane street? They move into any lane they darn well please, which is a violation of the law and no doubt causes many collisions at such intersections.
So allow me to explain. Let’s say I’m at the intersection of two four-lane streets. I’m sitting in the right-hand lane so, even if my light is red, I have the right-of-way to make a right-hand turn if there is no oncoming traffic. (Unless otherwise indicated, right turn on red is legal in all 50 states.) However, the guy sitting in the left turn lane across the intersection from me decides he wants to turn into the outside lane going the same direction as me. He gets his left green arrow, he takes off and “changes lanes in the middle of the intersection” and smacks into me as I’m making my perfectly legal right hand turn. (Or, if he somehow misses hitting me, he lays on his horn and gives me the one finger wave as if I was the one who made the stupid move.)
I could go on and on listing my driving peeves such as driving in twilight, fog or rain without having headlights on (Folks, those wimpy parking lights are for parking, not driving in rain or fog!), not using turn signals (Are they afraid they’ll run out of blinker fluid?) and camping out in the left lane on the interstate, just to name a few.
I won’t take up the space to list any more, but before I close this little rant I want to emphasize one more point that was made in the traffic safety meeting I attended. 
All of us probably consider ourselves to be safe, defensive drivers while we consider everybody else on the road to be a potential maniac. And, while it’s true that there are certain things we can do to mitigate the risks of getting into an accident -- like not tailgating -- it was pointed out by our highway safety experts that the very best thing you can do to protect yourself is wear your seat belt!
Many years ago I heard a long-time California highway patrolman say that in all his years in which he responded to hundreds of accidents, he had never unbuckled a dead body from a seat belt. So forget all the myths about your car going into water or catching fire in an accident and make sure you stay in that thing if it leaves the highway. Your car is designed so that in your driver or passenger seat there’s room to live. 
RON BURTZ can be reached at newsregister@hamilton.net