Move Over

There was a kind of driver on a major Ankara road who could make me angry before I saw the face behind the wheel.

The driver would stay in the left lane, travel faster than the official limit anyway, and then refuse to move when someone behind wanted to pass. My younger logic found this personally offensive. If you were going to ignore one rule, at least do not become strict about another one at exactly the moment it blocked me.

This was not traffic policy.

It was irritation looking for legal language.

Roads have written rules, but drivers also build another system from habit. How aggressively people merge, when they signal, whether they move aside, how much space they leave — much of this is learned by watching other drivers rather than reading signs.

After enough years in one city, the unwritten system begins to feel natural. That is dangerous because preference starts sounding like principle. “This is how traffic works here” can explain behavior and excuse it at the same time.

What I wanted in that moment was simple.

Move over.

Years later, the contradiction is easier to see. I was invoking the speed limit while complaining about someone who was already exceeding it, because he was not exceeding it in the way that suited me.

The driver in front was probably just one stranger.

In my mind, he carried every similar driver from the previous five years.

That is how traffic turns one car into a category.

And categories are much easier to become angry with than people.