At SFist, we love a lot of things, and we tell you about them. But we also hate some things, too, and we thought it was high time we told you about those, too. So for this inaugural post of SFist Rants, we decided to highlight a practice we can't understand for the life of us. We're willing to bet that you're familiar with it, too, and given that we're now hitting more than 4,000 readers a day (we crested 5,000 Monday!), you may even be one of the offenders, so listen up:

As you approach the Bay Bridge heading westbound, the lanes open up to facilitate an easier time getting through the tollbooths. Radio traffic announcers call it the maze [], because it looks something like that. (We once heard it referred to as a honeycomb, and we kind of liked that metaphor, but we never heard it again, so "maze" it is.) That part's more or less not a problem, as you're going from few lanes to many. Once you get past the metering lights, however, you have to go through the other part of the maze, condensing fifteen lanes into five in a pretty short space of time. That's difficult enough, depending on which lane you happen to be in (some lanes have only one merge, whereas others have up to three, we think -- the one on the far right may not even have any merges, if we recall correctly, but we're usually in the middle FasTrak lane, so don't quote us on that).

But here's the real problem: when some numbskull feels he or she just absolutely has to get all the way over to one side right after the metering lights, normal merging patterns be damned. And that's not even the worst -- the worst is when the numbskull does that on a rainy night, such as last night. Where are the CHiPs when you could really use them?

Oh, and you drivers (and you know who you are) who drive in the carpool or FasTrak lane because it's faster, and then suddenly "realize" you're in the wrong lane and try to squeeze in, cut it the hell out. You're not fooling anyone. And make no mistake -- we hate you, but we're also pissed off at the suckers who let you in. Try to cut in front of us, and it ain't happening, bub.

Photo by Glenn Davis

correction: no they don't -- see the comments