Drivin' in the rain

I always find myself marveling at how different people handle the rain and driving.

It's not really that hard.

When the rain is falling out of the sky, but the road isn't holding it, you really don't have to do too much that's different (although slowing down is probably wise).

When the road is soaked, there's standing water all over the place, and rain is pouring down from the sky, it's seriously time to slow the hell down.

This goes double for large trucks.

Context for this rant: I'm driving into work this morning in the wee hours. It's raining fairly hard. There's standing water on the freeway. I got on to the freeway and hugged the right lane in my tiny car.

Behind me there's a massive big-rig truck flying along the road and he's opted to tailgate me.

I'm barely doing 55 and the f***er is tailgaiting me! In the right lane!

He changes lanes to tailgate some poor schmuck to my immediate left after about a hundred yards of this. I accelerated to get away from a bad scene (someone ahead of me moved off giving me pretty much my own lane). I looked back and there wasn't a foot between that truck and the poor guy ahead of him.

Normally I'm not much for lolligaggers (sp?) on the freeway. If you're on the road, you should be moving at a good clip... though I really only care if I'm towards the left lanes. If you're hugging the right lane, go whatever speed you want. The other lanes exist for passing. That said, there's a point where being in a rush leads to being a complete idiot.

If I'd had to brake suddenly for any reason, I couldn't have. The road was way too slick.

It would be worse if that poor schmuck had to brake. The truck could never stop in time.

And the truck wasn't the worst. I saw at least four cars and one pickup truck blaze past in the left lanes, swerving between lanes like they were playing tag. I'd guess they were doing 90.

If the conditions were dry, I wouldn't care. In this weather? Idiotic.

Where's the CHP when you need them?