The Utah Wedge - or - Deconstructing Doug's Random Things

Because many have inquired, I have elected to expound on the 17th item of my post "25 Random Things About Doug." Number 17 states:

Doug hates the "Utah Wedge" (and that's not a hair style.)

The "Utah Wedge" is a motoring phenomenon which is actually not exclusive to Utah at all, but seems to be more prolific here, thus the moniker. The Wedge occurs on multi-lane highways when a driver occupies the outside lane and is then passed by another car. The passer does not then return to the outside lane ahead of the original driver, but also does not continue to accelerate. This results in the passing vehicle essentially driving "in formation" with the original driver where the rear bumper of the passer is inline with the front bumper of the car in the outside lane.

This process repeats it's self for the max number of lanes and soon, you have several cars passing each other in sequence but never accelerating beyond the car to their right and thus creating a "wedge" which prevents anyone else from passing in any lane and bogging down traffic.

This phenomenon can occur in mirror sequence (starting at the inside lane) and can also cascade symmetrically from the center lane.

The Utah Wedge is not to be confused with the "Utah Claw" which is a hair style prevalently popular among young women in the 90's that seemingly remained popular in Utah far longer than anywhere else. The dominant feature of this hairstyle were the bangs - curled upward and outward from the forehead, sometimes in grand flourish with a diameter of several inches. At it's peak of popularity it seemed the larger the diameter of this curl, the better. Because the bangs curled around and met the forehead at their point, the term "claw" was coined. Due to the prolonged popularity of the style in this region, it became known, mostly to outsiders, as the Utah Claw.

P.S. If I were to give the term "Utah Wedge" to a hairdo, I would assign it to the currently popular style where a woman allows her bangs to fall naturally to each side of her face, not longer than her shoulders, and then trims the hair lengths in sequentially shorter strands toward the back of the neck. This style appears to me, when observed from the side, to create a wedge. I find this style, IMHO, to be largely unflattering on the majority of women and I look forward to the day when it is no longer in vogue.