Dr. Helen, who appeared in the first segment of this past week's PJM Political, has some thoughts on holiday drivers:

Is it my imagination or are the current crop of holiday drivers mean as snakes and nuts to boot? I have been flipped off twice this week by drivers--both who were at fault. One driver with some real Christmas spirit--with a tree in the back of his truck for goodness sakes--ran a stop sign, almost hit us and had the gall to flip us a bird. Another car was using the turn lane to drive in as if it were a regular lane and was mad that I was there--uhh, turning. Naturally, the two young guys in the car had to jump up and down flipping birds. Then to top it off, a car crossed two lanes of traffic while I was going straight and nearly plowed into me; only by quickly pulling to the other side of the road did I avoid a collision. And they looked mad at me! Anyone out there experience this level of holiday cheer while out cruising around?

I spent all of this past week in New Jersey driving between my hotel in Mt. Laurel and various relatives in nearby towns (with a detour on Wednesday to vist XM HQ in DC), and I was astounded how much tailgating was happening on New Jersey's Route #295. The traffic density wasn't all that heavy (nowhere near as bad as the Bay Area, needless to say), but the drivers on the road tended to be clustered together in tight bunches, sort of like NASCAR drivers trying to draft each other. At one point, I had a driver so close to the rear of my car that if I had had to stop suddenly, he would have joined me in the front seat of my car. And even after putting the emergency blinkers on and slowing down, he still continued to tailgate.

I blame George Bush, global warming, big oil, and Atari.