After all these years of undiagnosed

road rage, I'm finally outing myself: I get angry at some drivers.

There. I've said it, and I

feel better for it.

I confess: I am not

a recovering road rager. I encounter the emotion every time I get on a

four-lane road in Fayette County. But now I can talk about it. AJC traffic

columnist Joey Ledford paved the way for me in a recent column. He actually

criticized the ones most responsible for most driving anger: The left

lane laggards.

For years I considered writing

a column that began: "It seems a majority of Fayette Countians have

leftward leanings. Color them pink if you will, but more than half of

all drivers on any four-lane Fayette road will be clogging up the left

lane, regardless of what the traffic is like in the right lane."

I always bit my typing finger

and held off, until now.

So, thank you, Joey Ledford,

for finally getting it right, way right. Get the laggards out of the left

lane and traffic will flow smoothly, road rage will virtually disappear

and the number of wrecks will decrease.

The problem is: Who are the

laggards? Dear reader, you couldn't possibly be one of them, could you?

With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy,

you could be a left lane laggard if:

· Multiple cars are passing

you on the right, some of the drivers gesturing at you. (Laggard? More

like lunkhead.)

· You are tooling along

at a neighborly pace, at exactly the same speed as and abreast with the

driver on your right and nothing in front of you. There's a line of cars

in your rearview mirror. Do you suppose that means something?

· Lights blink in your

rearview mirror, or horns honk from somewhere behind your leftie vehicle.

You think, "How rude," and persevere in your leftward determination.

· You get in the left

lane in Peachtree City in preparation for turning left 10 miles northward

in Fayetteville.

I have fantasized about a designated

deputy's vehicle fitted with a bulldozer blade for a front bumper whose

only job was to cruise the county's left lanes at 55 mph and clear them

laggards out.

Just last year, I think, the

sheriff's department wanted to apply for federal funds to set up a road

rage task force. The county commission wisely said no.

Assign some deputies to enforce

the state law requiring non-passing vehicles to stay in the right lanes,

and that would do more to make the roads safer than all the task forces

combined.

And while you're at it, county

commissioners: How about putting up some signs along the roadways telling

drivers to stay right unless passing. Enforced, that law would do much

more for traffic flow and traffic safety than all of those stupid 35 mph

speed limit signs on otherwise sparsely inhabited rural roads.

OK, I'm officially out now:

A confirmed passer thwarted by the 40-in-a-55 zone left-lane driver who

refuses to move over. There probably should be a 12-step meeting for us

frustrated "drive right" minorities.

I say minorities because on

a recent drive from Peachtree City, on an otherwise unobstructed four-lane

roadway during non-rush hours, nine vehicles were backing up in the left

lane while one car eased along at 45 to 50 mph in the right lane.

Yep, the lead leftward car

was matching the right lane vehicle, inch for nerve-racking inch. And

nobody nobody, not one soul would move over. I can only imagine the combined

crushing pressures generated by so many sets of clinching teeth and grinding

jaws.

Road rage is too polite a term

for the emotion generated by that oblivious, expletive-deleted left lane

laggard. And yet, some want to create task forces to punish the people

who just want to get around that lethargic lunkhead and get on with their

lives.

Sump'n ain't right.