THE GUY IN THE WHITE FORD F-150

On most mornings during the academic year, I drive my teen-aged daughter, Rachel to the high school she attends. She could ride the bus, but the fifteen minute commute gives us time to chat about any number of topics and I treasure the time we spend together. I know how time flies, and before I know it Rachel will be skipping off to college and our daily chats will become a thing of the past, so I'm taking advantage of every opportunity I can get. It's my own version of carpe diem.

The junior high school that Rachel previously attended is located next to her high school, but each of the schools has a separate access road that empties onto Bannister Street. Junior and senior high school students ride the same bus, so every morning a bus drops off junior high students first and then proceeds to the high school to drop off the older students. As a bus leaves the junior high school, the bus makes a left hand turn from the junior high school access road onto Bannister Street and then makes a second left hand turn into the high school access road. The result is a log-jam of buses attempting to make left-hand turns against a solid stream of traffic flowing in the opposite direction. It's not unusual for seven or eight buses to be stacked in a line waiting to make a left-hand turn at either intersection.

Whenever I'm driving on Bannister Street and the buses are stacked up waiting to make a left-hand turn across my lane of traffic, I've gotten into the practice of stopping at the intersection and signaling the line of buses to make their turns before I continue through the intersection. The practice saves the bus drivers a lot of time and energy and insures that the students get to school safely and on-time. I'm sure the bus drivers appreciate my gesture and I think a lot of driving parents do too, but the guy in the white Ford F-150 pick-up truck doesn't appreciate the gesture and he's let me know on several occasions exactly how he feels.

At least twice, maybe three times a month I've found myself driving in front of the same white pick-up truck, and the truck's driver has cursed out his window at me, flipped the finger at me and given me several loud blasts from his horn whenever I've stopped to let the waiting buses make the left-hand turn in front of me. Last week, he started blasting his horn before I even made it to the intersection or slowed down. I figured it was a preventative blast. The driver of the Ford F-150 is in a big hurry and my good deed apparently sends him over the edge.

I wonder if I'm being rude by delaying the pick-up truck driver, even though my act facilitates the prompt arrival of students at their own destination. Do I have a right to do a good deed at the expense of someone else? I'll have to give the matter some thought.