My name is Matt, and I am not a nice driver.

When I’m behind the wheel, I don’t lose control to the point ofan all-out road rage episode, but there are plenty of instancesinvolving other drivers that cause my blood pressure to rise. Theserange from the merely annoying to the downright aggravating.

I suppose the source of my consternation stems from my basicpremise that I know what I’m doing when I’m driving. Everyone else?Not so much.

Stop sign issues pop up from time to time when I’m traveling.These happen mostly around town, and sometimes not too far from thenewspaper office.

In the past, whenever four cars have arrived together at afour-way stop, I’ve let out several annoyed chuckles as we alltried to decide whose turn it was to go.

It’s generally a happy occasion as we’re all waving at eachother as we try to yield the right of way to someone else. It’ssomewhat comical, but eventually someone makes a move and the restgo on as well.

I much prefer that kind of niceness as opposed to theabsent-mindedness of someone running the stop sign altogether.Depending on how close I came to a collision, I’ll sometimes honkthe horn or merely point at the stop sign the other driver justran.

The highway, whether with open lanes and under construction,offers a minefield of irritations.

The open road is wonderful as long as people understand that notall motorists travel at the same speed. I’ve come to the conclusionthat too many drivers seemingly have no knowledge of this fact.

Why else would someone purposely drive noticeably less than thespeed limit in the left lane of the interstate? My late aunt wouldglare at these slowpokes as she passed them in the right lane.

By the same token, I’m equally outdone when I’m in the left lanetraveling the speed limit (or tolerably thereabouts) and a SpeedyGonzalez zooms by me in the right lane, giving me no time to moveover. When this happens, I secretly yearn for a Mississippi HighwayPatrolman to be sitting around the next corner.

Another issue I encounter far too often on the interstate iswhen a vehicle is in the left lane and another is the right laneand both are going the same speed.

Sort of like two people walking shoulder-to-shoulder down thehallway, I call this situation a “rolling roadblock” and I getantsy as I wait to pass one of the two vehicles. When this happens,I don’t care which lane I can pass in.

From my journeys outside of Brookhaven, I’ve developed a theorythat one cannot travel more than one hour in any direction withoutencountering some interstate or highway road construction.

Unless there are lane closures, I see any slowdowns due to theconstruction as a minor inconvenience and a reason to be a littlemore cautious around work zones. And too, the work representseconomic activity and a smoother traveling surface in thefuture.

Any lane closures, however, have the potential for bringing outthe be-all and end-all of roadway aggravations for me.

The situation I’m referring to involves all the warning signsthat there is “one lane ahead.” These signs generally start poppingup about half a mile from the lane closure and then more when it’sabout several hundred feet away.

I – and a bunch of other people – saw these signs and movedover. Why didn’t this idiot who’s passed all of us and is nowwaiting at the traffic cones for someone to let him into the oneopen lane?

When this happens, I am bound and determined to not let him infront of me. I will absolutely ride the bumper of the vehicle infront of me to ensure this doesn’t happen.

We’ve all got somewhere to be. I’m waiting in line; he can,too.

I can’t control other motorists’ forgiving natures, but Istrongly believe one should not be rewarded for not observingadvisory signs.

But whatever the traveling situation, I’ve developed a littlemotto that summarizes my feelings: Those of you who thinkyou own the road are very annoying to those of us who do.

That’s all for now.

Write to Matt Coleman at P.O. Box 551, Brookhaven MS 39602,or send e-mail to mcoleman@dailyleader.com.