So my commute was an hour long, where it was 30 minutes before.

A reporter stopped me once to ask what I thought of the freeway changes. I wanted to shout off and say how it completely screwed my schedule, but, facing that giant eye of a camera turned me into a mindless zombie and I just babbled about how "Great! It's good. Freeway...good!" It was not a surprise that they ignored me and interviewed my friend.

Anyways, I was driving up San Pablo when out of the corner of my left eye, I saw a car screeching a left onto my lane. There was no room and I thought he was going to hit me, so I reflexively gunned it. Luckily, the traffic ahead had moved a car or two, so I didn't rear end anyone.

For a few seconds, me and the other car were racing down a few yards of road. I couldn't get my flight reflex off of the accelerator. Why wasn't this guy slowing down?

I stopped right before I hit the car ahead, and I looked back (I think) to see if there was any room behind me, when my car lurched and rocked back and forth.

The other car zoomed around me, and the next thought in my tiny brain was "Golly gee! They must have accidently bumped into me. Gosh, I should follow them down that side street and exhange insurance numbers."

I managed to turn off San Pablo, and I saw the car waiting a block down. When I sped up, they squealed away. "Don't they want to exchange insurance?" I thought.

The intelligent part of my brain woke up, and I got really pissed. The other car must have thought I was blocking them on purpose, so they bumped me to get some payback. For a second, I thought of chasing them down, but they were already roaring down the street, and I didn't want to hit any of the neighborhood children playing about.

I just wanted to tell you this story because I try to be a careful driver, but I'm often misunderstood.