The morning of Thanksgiving — which also happened to be my birthday — I got on Highway 50 to head up to Orangevale and see friends before my family’s dinner.
Merging carefully into the chaos of the highway’s never-ending construction work, I gave the other cars plenty of room. The stretch of roadway between Watt Avenue and Interstate 5 has created the perfect storm of uneasy, overconfident or negligent drivers, with the added obstacles of shifting construction hazards.
So there I was, toodling along in the No. 2 lane, when suddenly, the far left lane came to an abrupt merge, and without any signage to warn drivers. I was in the exact wrong place and slammed on my brakes. The Escalade next to me — which appeared poised to take off my whole driver’s side — barely squeaked by…