[masraum]

Many years ago, I was at a traffic light. After the light, the road went from a divided 4 lane to a 2 lane road. The two people in front of me were a gray haired old man in an old pick-up truck and a middle aged mom in a mini van. In this case, the left lane had to merge into the right lane.

The two drove side by side from the light until the merge. The soccer-mom in the left lane put on her signal while driving along side the truck. I don't think the two were even more than a fender out of alignment. When the lanes merged, she thought he should brake to let her in. He thought she should brake and drop back behind him. Neither did and what ended up happening for 100 yds was she moved over towards him with her car half in the grass and half on the road, and he moved over (so she wouldn't hit him) with his car half in her lane and half in the oncoming lane.

They were both dumbarses. Both should have known better and at least one of them should have yielded (despite whichever was supposed to yield based on traffic laws).

I think that 99.99% of the time, there's a very easy way to stay out of trouble, and that's to not engage or to disengage. Some of the time that won't work. Obviously in the case of the crazy ex-girlfriend, the guy did what he could. At least he's not dead.