I understand the commute from Boise back to Canyon County can be long, especially with all the construction, but some of what I've been seeing lately in one spot is just plain dangerous.

You might know the spot I'm talking about. For the past couple months in the construction zone, there has been a place just before the Black Cat Road overpass on westbound I-84 where the roadway drops from three to two lanes very rapidly. So rapidly in fact that a fellow coworker and I for weeks didn't think there was a sign warning people before about 1500 feet prior to the shift.

And those 1500 feet go by pretty quick at 55 mph.

Since then I've noticed a sign signaling a "traffic shift" some miles before, just outside a Meridian exit, but the dropped lane still seems to be causing a lot of commute confusion - and, just lately, danger.

At first it was understandable. Not everyone drives that road every day at 3:30 like I do. So I could sympathize with all the people blowing by me in the soon-to-be-missing lane, only to find that they need to force their way back in at the last second. It caused a backup in traffic everyday for weeks in exactly the same spot as unknowing motorists used the third lane to pass, then were let back in by those of us patiently waiting in the other two lanes.

But in the last week, I've been truly scared by the things I've seen going on there.

For example, as I approached the sign before the reduced lanes last week, I saw someone in a SUV driving half in the middle lane, and half in the lane that was merging. For a while I couldn't figure out what they were doing, but as I heard the honking, I realized. They were attempting to block anyone else from speeding around them to force their way around traffic. And not-so-happy drivers were stacking up behind them, with horns blaring in some cases.

Then, it got scarier.

As we kept crawling along, a large pickup truck blew around the SUV using what remained of the third lane. As the truck cut back in, it almost took off the SUV's bumper speeding by, honking.

And then what? Of course, the truck had to wait for a kind soul who didn't see the incident behind them to let it back into the remaining lanes. The driver was maybe 10 cars ahead of the SUV in the end. And for a time savings of what? Less than a minute?

I hate being late and sitting in traffic as much as the next person, but I'm not willing to put my life - not to mention the lives of innocent people - at risk to save what amounts to mere seconds.

I've been driving this stretch watching this now for weeks. And no matter how much it messes with my schedule, I continue to just turn up the music and sit and wait patiently.

In the end, I care more about making it safely and in one piece than about being a couple minutes early.