How my commute turned into every New Jersey driver’s nightmare (Opinion)

I wouldn't wish this on any New Jerseyan. Well… maybe certain politicians in Trenton… but certainly not on you!

I know we in the Garden State are given a lot of grief for our driving, but we all know that we’re not as bad as outsiders say.

"They drive so fast there!" Sure, but that just means you should stay out of the left lane.

"I was given the 'Jersey salute,' how rude!" Chances are they deserved it.

"I saw some jerk do the 'Jersey slide' on the Parkway today." Well…. OK, they’ve got us there, that IS pretty obnoxious.

But I would say the most obnoxious drivers on New Jersey roads are the out-of-state drivers and on my commute home Friday night I had a double dose of them.

I was driving east on 195 when I saw two cars looking to be going about the same speed even though one was in the left lane (a.k.a. the passing lane and the lane I was also in).

“Surely, the left lane car will get out of the way as I get closer,” I thought, foolishly.

I continued on my way until I was just a few car lengths behind the two cars. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see the car in the left lane had a New York license plate, and the right lane car was (of course) from Pennsylvania.

Out. Of. State. Drivers.

They were going the same speed right next to each other. It was as if the twins from The Shining were vehicles, and I was Danny on my tricycle just trying to get home for the long weekend.

For anyone wondering: no, they weren't going 80 mph and I wasn't trying to be a speed demon. They were both going 65.

#NotMyLeftLane

I couldn’t safely get a good picture, so you’ll have to take my (admittedly terrible) artist rendering of what it looked like.

Which means if I could have taken a photo of what my face looked like in that moment, it would have been a combination of these three emojis.

After a solid minute or so of trying to get the New Yorker to understand he was in the way, I tried shifting over to the right lane to see if Mr. PA would take the "don't you see I'm behind you?" hint.

He didn't.

So back to the left lane I went. At this point it felt like they were in cahoots and just pulling some sort of prank on me.

It was several more minutes before the PA driver in the right lane finally moved ahead, so I was able to be free of their frustrating trap.

These out-of-state drivers need to understand that the left lane is for passing! If you’re in the left lane, going the same speed as the driver in the right lane, AND there’s a line forming behind you, the Jersey driver isn’t the problem. It’s you.

So when you hear people from other states say we drive poorly, just fuhgeddaboudit. WE know what we’re doing on our roads.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5's Kylie Moore. Any opinions expressed are Kylie's own. You can follow Kylie on Instagram.

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