What is the most beautiful word in the English language? For me, there's no contest.
Vindication...
I have a handful of peeves that can really set off. Physics not working the way I expect it too, waiting on something for no readily apparent reason, and waiting on something when the reason is other people's gross incompetence are all high among them. And driving... Driving in traffic punches my buttons like a silverback gorilla who thinks he's being fed for it. And it's with no small amount of pride that I've managed to temper my frothing rage at the way other people drive, but now I'm a nine-to-five drone like the rest of humanity, I am truly starting to wear thin.
And don't think I'm a hypocrite about it. I don't blame people who jump between lanes or cut someone off, they're mad just like me. And I don't blame people for driving cautiously either, believe me, I know I should too, and bless them for leaving a proper number of car lengths between the vehicle in front of them (since it makes it a lot easier for the assholes to get around). And I don't blame any large vehicles or trailers, they have every reason in the world to be slow.
I reserve my blame for a couple classes of people. There are those who drive unnecessarily cautious. And they exist, don't try to excuse them. There is no reason in the world to be doing twenty MPH under the speed limit, if anything you're putting yourself and others in danger. But more than that maybe, who I really blame are the people who are clearly just not paying attention to what the Hell they're doing. The people who don't have a set speed in mind, they just stick like glue to whatever car gets next to them. Or swerve and slow down to look at shit on the other side of the highway. Or change lanes leftward and then slow down below the prevailing speed. Or slow down as if there were traffic in front of them, where it is abundantly obvious the traffic is only beside them. In short, people who are clearly taking their cues from atavistic instincts regarding moving objects in their peripheral vision (or perhaps believing their car can drive itself), and not exercising any particular amount of rational consideration or forethought to their actions.
I plan every move thirty seconds in advance, because I know I'm sharing the road with an exponentially larger number of people who don't so much as consider their navigation even after they're doing it. And when I'm inevitably stuck in bumper to bumper traffic with obstructions in sight, I find myself pondering existential questions.
Why is the left lane always the first one to stop, when by definition there is no merging traffic there?
Can people lose their sense of object permanence after infancy?
When one is caught in traffic, is not "proceeding when the car in front of you does" automatically your main priority?
Why is that every time I change lanes, the lane I get into is the one that stops next?
And am I the only motherfucker on this highway with a vested interest in arriving at their destination?
Somewhere in the simmering rage that I build in my cab, I developed a theory. That there are actors out there - Big Oil, The Police, George Soros, The Guvmint, Oprah Winfrey, The Majestic XII - for whom rampant traffic congestion is in itself desirable. That there exists a concerted effort to create freeways full of automobiles, idling along at walking pace. Above and beyond a small but real brand of people who just enjoying fucking up other people's days by being obnoxious.
My commute today provided some interesting object lessons on both ends of the scale. My bread and butter these days is the Dallas North Tollway, a publicly-funded Chinese-owned American Autobahn where they invented the technology of eliminating the booths and just sucking their fare straight out of your bank account. I'm even lucky enough to be going against the main flow of traffic, headed outbound to the suburbs in the morning and returning downtown in the evening. The drive would take about twenty-five to thirty minutes at the posted limit of 70MPH - it never takes less than fifty. This morning in particular saw a five mile long jam where on more than one occasion all three lanes came to a dead halt for the better part of a minute. The kind of jam that makes me say things like, "There better be a dead body at the end of this line, so I know we're here for a good reason."
The reason: A bag of cement mix had fallen into the road, creating a gossamer thin dustcloud where two highways merged. I'm aware of the theory of "phantom traffic", where ordinary behavior can ripple backwards to create nightmare congestion, and you can see the ripple effect from hilltops. But I've always said that every jam is somebody's fault. These somebodies made themselves known at the cloud.
Type 1, The Good People: Those who, upon achieving open road ahead, apply a controllable amount of acceleration and stay in one damn lane as they approach the posted speed limit.
Type 2, The Assholes: Those who, upon achieving open road, immediately hit eighty-eight miles an hour in an attempt to warp back in time to when they weren't late.
Type 3, The Problem: Those who, upon achieving open road, take a solid minute to recognize it before removing their foot from the brake, try to decide which lane they need to be in, and attempt to reach prevailing highway speed through engine-idle alone.
(You can guess by now which group I belong to.)
But it was the drive home that gave had me shouting for joy. There are three areas along the return drive that are always congested, and I can mostly understand why. It's the exits that are the problem, exits onto other thoroughfares that will be narrowed to one lane by construction until 2025, or onto town street intersections where the space between the highway and the (poorly timed) red light is no where near large enough to hold the volume of traffic. As stated, these created jams in the left lane because slow objects to your side apparently mean you're supposed to go slow too, no matter what.
Except for today. Same time as always, all the same piles of cars trying to get off on a few exits, even a major accident on the other side of the road. And I never had to drop below 60. Until I got to problem area number three, and that's where I saw... them. The traffic was thick but it was moving, and it was moving side to side. When I got into the pack, I noticing the issue: everyone swerving around and passing about a dozen cars who were doing around 30MPH (on a 70MPH tollway) with only empty space in front of them. Some of them tried to stay near each other, lining up two or three abreast and slowing down in concert until forced apart by circumstance. A few even tried to fight about it, speeding up when passed to get back in front of people and then slow down again. I weaved my way through to a big fat nothing on the other side, promising sacrifices to Mercury in thanks for someone dropping the ball over at the Department of Causing Fucking Traffic.
I finally found them. They exist. A class of people who have dedicated their lives, by employment or philosophy, to making the rest of the world waste time. They're real, and I can prove it, goddammit. I told you mom, I told you Internet, I told you Judge Riley, there really are people whose only purpose in being on the road is to slow it down, and even if they might not be doing it consciously it's definitely an active effort.
I was fucking right. I am vindicated. There really was a gremlin on the wing. And now, to tell the world...
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Topic: See, I told the judge it wasn't just me. (Read 7710 times)