Challenge: The Letter He Didn't Send
To My Fellow Drivers:
Driving home today, I spent a good portion of my time in the car thinking about this Traffic Wave Experiment that I read about a couple of years ago. It was interesting; but in LA, I learned a valuable lesson: if you plan too far in advance and try and fix the traffic congestion yourself (by leaving a big gap ahead of you, like this guy suggests), people will thwart you. Without fail. They see a window of opportunity and they snag it. In this instance, it's in the gap ahead of my car. They see that gap as Their Spot and fill it. Then, once they are ahead of me, they fall into the same traps that all the other short-sighted, slighted-on-attention-span drivers do. Once the gap is eaten up, traffic's back to the slow crawl that you were trying to fix.
So, what's the most typical fuck-up that people make on the freeway? Aside from eating, dialing their cells, talking on their phones and gesturing too much when they talk -- it's changing lanes too much. Thinking that one lane is better than the other, just because it's temporarily moving faster. Inevitably, the lane slows down and the driver picks the NEW fastest lane and tries their luck there. And so does their friend, Mr. I'm In Front of You. And HIS friend, Ms. McFirstyson.
Welcome to the new slow lane. And now MY lane, the one that people bailed on, two lanes ago, is the fastest lane. At this point, you can think ahead and stick it out, or you can swerve back into my lane and get there .4 seconds faster than I can.
Whatever, drivers. You know what I'm saying. You've been there before. So, I'm writing this letter is to ask: did you get there any faster? Is it any better? Is staying in the same lane and seeing the drive through such a bad thing? If you get somewhere 9 seconds before I do, does that warrant slowing down everyone else's collective travel time by 15 seconds?
You don't have to drive like a grandma or be a douchebag about it (because we'll get there all the same), but... what ever happened to moving in a collective mass, rather than always looking over your shoulder for the next best, fastest, prettiest option?
Sincerely,
A Concerned and Frustrated Lane-Stayer-Inner, Tucker Wells
Driving home today, I spent a good portion of my time in the car thinking about this Traffic Wave Experiment that I read about a couple of years ago. It was interesting; but in LA, I learned a valuable lesson: if you plan too far in advance and try and fix the traffic congestion yourself (by leaving a big gap ahead of you, like this guy suggests), people will thwart you. Without fail. They see a window of opportunity and they snag it. In this instance, it's in the gap ahead of my car. They see that gap as Their Spot and fill it. Then, once they are ahead of me, they fall into the same traps that all the other short-sighted, slighted-on-attention-span drivers do. Once the gap is eaten up, traffic's back to the slow crawl that you were trying to fix.
So, what's the most typical fuck-up that people make on the freeway? Aside from eating, dialing their cells, talking on their phones and gesturing too much when they talk -- it's changing lanes too much. Thinking that one lane is better than the other, just because it's temporarily moving faster. Inevitably, the lane slows down and the driver picks the NEW fastest lane and tries their luck there. And so does their friend, Mr. I'm In Front of You. And HIS friend, Ms. McFirstyson.
Welcome to the new slow lane. And now MY lane, the one that people bailed on, two lanes ago, is the fastest lane. At this point, you can think ahead and stick it out, or you can swerve back into my lane and get there .4 seconds faster than I can.
Whatever, drivers. You know what I'm saying. You've been there before. So, I'm writing this letter is to ask: did you get there any faster? Is it any better? Is staying in the same lane and seeing the drive through such a bad thing? If you get somewhere 9 seconds before I do, does that warrant slowing down everyone else's collective travel time by 15 seconds?
You don't have to drive like a grandma or be a douchebag about it (because we'll get there all the same), but... what ever happened to moving in a collective mass, rather than always looking over your shoulder for the next best, fastest, prettiest option?
Sincerely,
A Concerned and Frustrated Lane-Stayer-Inner, Tucker Wells