B HAPY

It was Friday morning.  It was going to be a good day.  And I needed it, after Thursday afternoon's Four O'Clock 400 turned into the 24 hours of Le Mans when the interstate closed due a motorcyclist crashing.  OK, it was only two hours, but work with me here.

As I merged from my first interstate to my second, I found myself following a navy blue Nissan Murano who was happily plodding along, in the fast lane, at approximately 72.5 miles per hour.  (I was going to use kilometers here, but 116 did not seem to convey the tortoise-like pace I was going for.)

Did I mention this was all going on in the fast lane?

As we plodded along, I had plenty of time to notice the Nissan's vanity plates: B HAPY.

Hmm, I thought, and so I will.  Pulling into the middle lane, I gassed it up to 137 --. kilometers, relax!  But my 'hapyness' did not last long.  No sooner had I cleared Mister Life in the Fast Lane (or Miss, I don't like to make eye contact) when lines of brake lights caused me to come to a stand still.

Over the next hour and five miles, I lost track of the navy blue Murano, as I alternated between zero, three and, on the rare occasion, eight miles an hour.

As I looked at the fellow drivers around me and screamed indiscriminately, I thought to myself, this is where we are as a city.  As a society.  Just complete gridlock virtually every morning and afternoon.  And yet we all just accept it.

Watching a handful of extremely sensible and intelligent drivers jet back and forth from lane to lane, risking life and limb, all to gain one or two positions in traffic, I was reminded of one of my better entrepreneurial ideas.

You may want to sit down for this.

Turn signals and brake lights that have the ability to display a scoreboard-like message to fellow drivers.  

Think about it.  For starters, the thank you wave has become virtually indistinguishable from the I'm sorry wave.  So you could pre-program commonly used messages such as these for quick access.

This would help clear up any communication issues that may arise between drivers.  For example, now when someone honks at me I have no idea if it's someone I know, if I cut them off, or if they have seen my "Honk if you love binary numbers -- that makes 10 of us!" bumper sticker.

To be safe, I usually just assume it's the bumper sticker.

Message lights would clear everything up!  No more silly "Sorry I shot you, I mistook your peace sign for a one-finger salute" misunderstandings.

These highway hellos could range from the life-changing ("Will you marry me?") to the life-saving (Help! I'm being kidnapped.). The possibilities are endless.

I could have used a brake light message system on Friday morning.  

As traffic cleared and I began to accelerate, I once again found myself in the fast lane.  Approaching the slower vehicle in front of me, I blinked my eyes to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing.

Could it be?  Surely not.

But it was.

The familiar navy blue color.  Squatty shape of the Murano.  With the tag that now seemed to be taunting me:  B HAPY.

Good one, universe.

I accelerated to eighty-five and smiled the rest of the way to work.  

If only my vehicle was equipped with message lights, I could typed, "Move Over!"  

Or any of a variety of other two-word phrases drivers sometimes like to use as freeway greetings.