It is getting more unsafe all the time our there on the road!

Yesterday I was driving from N. Fremont to I 5 south to connect with 84 E. We took N. Vancouver which becomes Wheeler and an easy entry to I 5 South. Near the intersection of Broadway and Wheeler there were signs telling of road work and the left lane closing. There were two cars ahead of my bus in the left lane and as the lane closed, I made room for them to merge. The lane was closing rapidly and they made their merge. Then in my mirror, there is a white SUV squeezing up next to me, there is little left of the lane and he is getting ready to hit the big orange triangle. I am moving ahead because braking would cause other complications with the rest of the traffic flow. Finally, that SUV brakes, but I can see in my mirror the drive looks angry.

We get onto the ramp, staying in the right and there is a pretty good flow of traffic when suddenly in my left mirror again the white SUV is cutting into traffic, in front of a car and then speeding up and cutting in front of me, hitting his brakes because he is going to fast and then speeding towards the East on I 84. The woman sitting in the front of my bus comments about that driver. We had a little exchange, because I honked my horn at his blatant abuse of the road way and the fact that I am driving my school bus, the yellow one. I have to wonder, what people are thinking when they do stupid driving behaviors like that? Do they think that maybe someones children are on the bus and they could be putting 50 little lives in pearl? Not likely, because the sane drivers tend to yield to the yellow or at least appear to use caution which is what the yellow of the bus is supposed to invoke in their brains. Yellow means caution, red means stop.

It is a continuing struggle for me to accept this bad driving of a few selfish people. I was reading in a national safety publication that aggressive driving can be ticketed, but why don't we hear more about people getting ticketed for this unsafe behavior. Why do we only hear about the results of road rage, the next step up from aggressive driving?

I am finding that I don't like to drive except in my big yellow bus because of the damage that could be inflicted on me in my small van by these same people, and I haven't even got on my motorcycle this year for similar concerns.

Time to go and do it all over again.