No, Your Cars Can Not Hold Hands.

There is always a slowbie in the HOV lane. Usually it's a Prius. Sometimes it's a truck pulling a trailer. And other times, it's a full-size, dented, red Chevy pickup with no reason for going that slow.

Slowbies are a little annoying, sometimes, but I generally don't mind them too much. After all, I've got passing power in abundance. It's simple enough to wait for enough space to open up and scoot by them.

Sometimes, though, you get a slowbie and some kind of insecure dolt that insists on driving right next to the slowbie. Today, the insecure dolt was in a compact black pickup. This dark pickup spent a good while hiding out in my blind spot as I rode to work before working up the courage to actually pass me.

I moved into the next lane to the right in order to get out from behind the slowbie, since the black pickup was now moving at a good speed.

Except then the black pickup's driver decided passing was too scary and slowed down to keep pace right next to the red truck. So the slow, red pickup sped up - presumably to get some space. I moved back into the HOV lane and accelerated a bit since the red pickup was now hauling ass, relative to the black pickup.

It was still pretty slow.

The driver of the black pickup apparently decided it shouldn't be that easy for me to scoot by and resume an appropriate cruising speed. So, he sped up and stayed right next to the red pickup again.

Annoying. These two pickups created a traffic dam, restricting the two left lanes to 55 MPH. No one in Phoenix drives at 55 MPH unless they're in a school zone. Happily for me, the middle lane was wide open, so I zipped out from behind the trucks, passed them, and zipped back over to the HOV lane.

See, this is why CB radios need to come back. If they'd had CB radios in their trucks, these two could have flirted for the whole drive without restricting traffic. They could have arranged to meet for donuts and truck-snuggling, leaving the rest of us free to flow past their budding pick-em-up romance.

Also, if we did end up caught behind them, we'd be able to politely ask them to get the hell out of the way, since some of us have jobs to get to.

These problems all come back to a lack of communication...