OK. You’re driving down a two lane road and hit an intersection. The light is red. Blocking the right lane in poll position is an eighteen wheeler. Blocking the left lane in poll position is a loaded dump truck. Which lane do you pick?
Common logic says that you don’t want to be behind a truck at all when stopped at a red light. You know they will take forever to get up to speed. If there were only one truck, you’d simply get in the other lane behind the cars and zip out past him when the light changes. This instance is unique, however. You’re fucked in both lanes. You have to rely on experience here.
On one hand, you know for sure that the semi will take forever. He was already in the right lane. He has metaphorically conceded to traveling slowly. He’s loaded down and is going to pull into a business up the road and if you follow him, when he turns right, he’ll screw you for sure. Dump truck drivers always have shit blowing out of the back of their trucks. I lived through a dented hood and chipped windshield on a couple different vehicles as proof. So, you don’t want to be behind the dump truck either. Hot tip: dump truck drivers have a busy schedule. They need to haul ass between loads so he will be more anxious to get up and cruising. He will probably hammer it at the line. The only risk you take by getting behind the dump truck is having a big chunk of rock fly out and shatter your windshield when he hits his first pothole. The potential for damage is exacerbated by the fact that you’ll be tailgating him waiting to get around him at the first opportunity.
Choosing which lane to get into at a stop light is similar to picking which lane to get into at the grocery store. Do you get in line behind the dude with the overstocked cart, the old lady with twelve items and fifty seven coupons, the metrosexual with nine organic items, or the woman from the trailer park with a kid shoplifting candy bars and an infant in the kid seat? It can be a rough choice. I digress, but in this instance, I’d pick the dude with the loaded cart. He doesn’t give a shit. He hates the grocery store and is only doing the shopping because his old lady asked him to pick up ninety two items while he was shopping for beer. Plus, the Villanova/Georgetown men’s hoops game starts in forty five minutes and he wants to get home, get this shit unloaded, and be sitting in his chair drinking a Schlitz in time to watch Erin Andrews do whatever it is she does during ESPN pre-game. You don’t want to pick the old lady either because those coupons are going to get used. It will take a while. Plus, they will have to do twelve price checks because she probably grabbed the wrong items that don’t match her coupons anyway. Don’t pick the metrosexual because he will want his bananas in a paper bag, his wine double bagged in paper and then plastic, and will insist on keeping his gruyere cheese separate from the bruschetta. Too much of a pain in the ass to be worth the trouble. At all costs, any of these three will be a lesser evil than getting in line behind trailer park woman. She’ll go back and forth between beating one kid, yelling at the other, and sending a text to her boyfriend to be sure it’s OK that she picked up Cool Ranch Doritos instead of the Nacho Cheese ones he likes because they were on sale. It just isn’t worth it.
My thoughts on the truck dilemma: pick the dump truck. He will hammer it at the line because he’s got six more trips to take before 8:30 AM. He’s in a hurry. At the start, he’ll be going slowly enough that he won’t kick any rocks out on your car but fast enough that he can smoke the big rig. This actually happened to me. I was right. The dump truck pulled ahead and I got past the semi and around the dump truck without incident.
Picking the right lane takes a strong intuition but relies heavily on experience. Trust your gut.
