It happens every summer but I noticed it earlier than in years past. Out of state drivers.

Beginning in about April, drivers from both states invade New Jersey. Even the annual visitors seem to forget their way from one year to the next and need to learn their directions all over again. When the drivers from New York get the hang of it, they start running you off the road. Pennsylvania drivers never seem to get the hang of it!

New Yorkers have always been a problem for me in New Jersey in the summertime. Now that I live in the western part of the state, I encounter Pennsylvania drivers as well and they have their own peculiarities. It's gotten to the point where I don't want to be anywhere near a car with Pennsylvania plates!

Just this morning on my way to the YMCA to make up a swim lesson with my toddler, I stopped at a light on 33 East behind a Pennsylvania driver. The left lane of the two-lane highway was open and I thought, "Go into that other lane" but I didn't.

So, the light changed to green, and cars traveling east in the left lane didn't slow down at all as they approached the green light. The PA driver started moving ahead but I saw his passenger pointing frantically towards the jughandle for 527A North.

In response, he stopped dead in the travel lane! Then he swerved into the left lane (why?), got honked at by the high-speed cars in that lane. He stopped again in the travel lanes ... this is all happening ahead of me, you remember. Then, hopelessly missing his exit, he pulled onto the shoulder. I was delighted that his window was down so that my honk would be loud in his ear. And he had the audacity to honk back! What a bonehead.

One mistake, I can tolerate. But stopping a second time in the travel lane and swerving into the left lane, that crossed the line, in my book. I mean, how much accommodation can he expect from us? And, you know, what? I didn't hang around to find out, but I bet you 100 to 1 that he backed up along that shoulder and took the jughandle. I see it all the time. And I have seen them back up in the travel lanes too!

It's rural out here, sure. I see U-turns, stopping dead in the travel lanes and backing up on the highway or the shoulder all the time. Just because it happens all the time doesn't make it any less dangerous.

On Wednesday, in Freehold, around lunchtime, a couple with New York plates was traveling west on 537 in the vicinity of route 9. I was exiting route 9 south and intended to go east on 537. They were in the left-turn lane for route 9 south and, even though my light turned green, I waited for them to make their turn because they had pulled into the intersection quite far. There were plenty of cars on the other side of the light waiting to head east on 537, so the New Yorkers might not get their chance later if they didn't take it immediately ... 'though I think there is a green arrow for them in the cycle.

Anyway, they turned and turned and turned ... they made a three-point turn into a six-point turn, right there on 537. It was then that I saw their New York plates. Oi gevalt! I waited at my green light. I couldn't go because they were blocking my lane on the other side of the intersection.

They finally got their boat turned around, dashed over the overpass bridge and turned right onto route 9 north just as my light changed to red. I was out into the intersection a little because when my light turned green, I pulled out before I realized the maneuver that they had in mind. So, I thought it best to back up a little bit so that a car didn't clip my front bumper since my view of traffic approaching from the left is blind there.

But, backing up is tricky there, too, because the exit ramp itself is a little blind. I managed to creep back a foot or so and hoped for the best. I suppose it was a little satisfying to know that I was not the only soul witnessing such a disgraceful turn at the wheel and I would have rather sat through a light cycle than ventured out into their mess. But, still, I have "Traffic-Cop Tim" in the backseat yelling, "Mom, you have a green light, GO!"

I know that driving in New Jersey is unique. I'm from somewhere else, so I know that. The jughandles, the circles, the long yellows, the traffic signals at 55 m.p.h. or faster. All I ask is that, if you want to commit vehicular suicide, please don't take me with you.