The following happened this morning on the way to work.

I live in Raleigh, NC. In the morning I take Wade Ave. to I-40 to go to
work. It starts out as a fairly narrow 4 lane street (2 in each direction,
with some left turn lanes, but not one at every potential left turn) and
lots of stop lights. As you head out of town it widens first to a nice wide
surface street, then a controlled access highway and finally merges with
I-40. I am in the right lane behind a plumber's van, so my vision ahead is
limited. At every light, my line takes off quickly, pulls ahead of the
people occupying the left lane, but before I can pass the van (which is
going slower than I want to), my line tops out and the cars in the left lane
catch back up, preventing me from passing. Finally, because a car in the
left lane is turning left, there is a nice opening in the left lane. The van
moves over to the left lane first and I see that the van is not the reason
my lane is acting strangely. There was a Prius in the right lane in front of
the van. I move over behind the van, so I do can pass the Prius. Before I
can complete my pass of the Prius, we have to stop at a red light. When the
light turns green, the Prius driver floors it and immediately pulls to the
left in front of the van.  In my opinion, it was a total MFFY move. There is
not another left turn off the road from there to Barstow, Ca as far as I
know. Not only that, the Prius driver doesn't even have the good sense to
outrun the van. The van driver is clearly irate. He is tailgating the Prius,
flashing his lights, etc. We are now on the controlled access portion of the
street (past the I-440 exits). The right lane is clear, so I move back to
the right. I leave room for the van to do the same, but apparently he wants
to intimidate the Prius driver. I prefer not to be involved, so after
waiting a significant period of time for one of them to move right, I just
pass them both. Eventually, after I am maybe 3/8 mile ahead, the Prius
driver gets the message and moves over. Meanwhile a Mitsubishi Eclipse has
entered the left lane between the van and me to pass a slower vehicle. The
van driver gives him the flashing light treatment as well. As soon as the
Eclipse passes the slower vehicle, he gets out of the vans way. The van
never changes back to the right lane (but most people don't as they approach
I-40). Just before I reach I-40, I have moved back to the left lane of Wade
Avenue (the right lane turns into an exit only lane at this point). The van
catches me just as we reach I-40 (but never feels the need to flash me). As
soon as he hits I-40, he moves as far to the left as he can (the road is 4
lanes, then briefly 5 lanes wide going west at this point). He is really
moving, maybe 75 or 80 in a 65 zone. I never see him again.

So who is the MFFY in this story -

a) The Prius Driver
b) The Van Driver
c) Me
d) The Eclipse driver
e) All of us
f) None of us
g) a + b
h) a + b + c

Is there a JLEDI in this story?

Oh yeah, I arrived safely at work and it took about the same amount of time
as it always does (20 minutes). I never saw the van or the Prius again. I
assume the Prius was somewhere behind me, and the van might be half way to
California for all I know.

In my opinion, the Prius driver was a jerk. But so was the van driver.
Rather than waste his time trying to intimidate the Prius, he could have
just passed him. The Eclipse driver did nothing wrong, and was probably
flashed because the van driver was suffering from road rage. Of course, I
was totally blameless - well except people who are KRETP Nazis probably
think I should not have passed on the right - even though it was perfectly
legal - and except for the people who think the van driver was right for
intimidating the Prius - they probably think I should have taken a few
minutes to harass the Prius as well. The only excuse I can make for the
Prius driver is that as the road widens into a controlled access highway
(but before I-40), there are acceleration ramps entering Wade Avenue from
I-440, Blue Ridge Road, and Edwards Mill Road. He might have though he
needed to be in the left lane to avoid the traffic entering from those ramps
(particularly the I-440 Ramp). However, he made his move to cut off the van
well before we encountered any traffic entering from those ramps, and to be
honest, traffic was pretty light on that portion of the road. If he had out
run the van I don't think there would have been an issue. However, moving
over to cut someone off and then not accelerating to a speed above the guy
you cut off is a true MFFY action in my opinion.

Regards,

Ed White