Just one of my pet peeves

As I mentioned earlier, I spent this last week working in Salt Lake City, which was quite fun. I think I also mentioned the fact that I carpooled with my friend Matt. While providing interesting conversation, Matt also provided me with a passenger, which meant we were allowed in the carpool lane. Excellent, right? Sadly, no. We soon discovered (and re-discovered each and every day) that there are many drivers (at least many Utah drivers) who don’t understand the purpose of a carpool lane. Just because you have the required number of people in your car does not mean you MUST drive in the carpool lane – especially if you insist on driving slower than the rest of traffic. The purpose of an HOV lane is to encourage people to carpool so that they can travel at faster speeds than the rest of the traffic-jammed, single-rider vehicles. I’m not talking about exceeding the speed limit here. There were times when I would have loved to have reached the speed limit. What I’m talking about is the fact that if the vehicles in the far left lane (a.k.a. “the slow lane”) are moving faster than you are, you should get the heck out of the HOV lane. I'm just saying.