Paul Levy reports on a near miss. Complete with helpful diagram.

A sting operation! Richard DiBona tweets it's happening right now:

A guy walks back and forth in the crosswalk while a cop waits to bag people who don't stop.

Location

It's a faceoff! CT3 bus driver vs. SUV driver at W. Concord Street and Harrison Avenue in the South End.

Jason Laramie, who took the photo around 9:47 this morning, reports the two have been facing off like that for 10 minutes, blocking traffic (including him) all the way back to Mass. Ave.

Grimlocke reports how she almost got hit by a car in Brookline this morning:

In the crosswalk. I threw my bagel and hit the car. Then I ate the bagel. Everyone who drives in Brookline is an assclown.

Boston Biker recounts a near run-in with a Masshole on Sunday.

IBM has been studying stresses on American motorists, and has released a report claiming stress among Boston drivers is up dramatically this year - enough to push us from the second least stressed out major driving city in 2008 to the fourth most stressed group of drivers in the country (in your face, New York, we're more stressed out than you). Only LA, Washington and Miami drivers experience more agita on the daily commute, based on a survey of 4,440 drivers in ten major US cities, IBM says.

Some 47% of Boston drivers reported being stressed out on their commutes, up 10 percentage points from last year. According to IBM, Boston drivers rated the following as the worst roads for commuting: I-93, Routes 95, 128 and 495, "downtown."

And why is IBM studying drivers that aren't installed on PCs (ba-dum-DUM)? It sells "smart commuting" systems governments can use to try to get traffic to flow better.

Dave Alpert discusses douche lanes - lanes on local roads that are full of douchebag motorists, such as the far right lane at "the end of Storrow Drive - where it forks into Soldier's Field Road and the bridge over to Fresh Pond Parkway." But he wonders: Do the roads turn people into Massholes or are Massholes just naturally attracted to them?

A Green Line commuter forwards this note to the Green Line superintendent and the Executive Office of Transportation:

This morning(8/24) at 7:50 A.M I boarded E Line,Green Line Car 3885B headed inbound at Longwood. The operator did not respond when I said good morning but this is nothing new to be ignored by MBTA workers. Then when the trolley went underground the operator proceeded to tail-gate the trolley in front of it at the Copley, Arlington and Boylston stations. At one point he left only 15 feet or so between the cars. At one of these three station before I got off at park Street he yelled out an expletive about a passenger he though was taking to long to enter the train. He said, "come through the F' ing doors." I am out of work. I would gladly take his place and treat MBTA passengers with respect and not endanger their lives.

Only in Boston.

The Massachusetts Appeals Court today overturned the assault conviction of a gun-toting Commerce Department agent who ended a road-raging duel with a motorcyclist on Boston streets by swerving his government-owned Maxima into him and then making a run to New Hampshire as the man lay on the ground, broken and bleeding.