Does New Jersey Know What Yield Means?

I usually take Jersey drivers in stride, after all, I'm one of them. But a long trip on the Parkway this weekend has me ready to vent.Does anyone in this state understand that when you're getting on the Parkway, you're the one who has to yield to the traffic on the Parkway? In other words, you yield for the Parkway. The Parkway doesn't yield for you!

Diane and I took a weekend trip to Cape May, and the ride home was a study in bad driving, bad drivers and bad decisions. There were plenty of "out of state" plates doing their typical thing, but there were plenty of yellow plates on the cars in question as well.

There was lane changing without signaling, tailgating, abrupt braking and all the other bad habits you'd expect on the Parkway. But the thing that got me on Sunday was the obnoxiousness drivers displayed when entering the Parkway in the first place.

At entrance ramp after entrance ramp I saw drivers barreling onto the Parkway doing about 70 on the ramp and just cutting off right lane drivers. No yield, no caution. I doubt if they even looked. They just expected right lane drivers to get out of their way.

And then, if the right lane driver didn't oblige, the entrance ramp guy was the one shocked. There were arms swinging in the air, fingers being used for things other than counting and of course tailgating.Aah tailgating. The bad driver's way to punish the good driver.

So I thought I would provide a public service and publish the definition of "yield", but the only people who will pay attention are the good drivers anyway, so I don't know how much it will help. But I'll try. So New Jersey drivers, stop, or at least yield, and read the following definition according to the Merriam Webster...

To surrender or relinquish to the physical control of another. Hand over possession of or

To surrender or submit (oneself) to another.

I'm paraphrasing here but I think it means the people on the big road get to go before the people trying to get on the big road unless the people trying to get on the big road have their own lane. Now I'm not law enforcement or a traffic engineer, but I think that makes sense. Right?

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