Let me preface this post by saying that if there is one thing that can make being late for work anything less than frustrating..it is when you are late BUT your supervisor and boss are both later than you are.
Traffic sucks. It really does. It slows you down to the point where you are lucky if you get where you want to be before you are actually late. I am not saying anything new here. I am not re-inventing the wheel. Nobody likes traffic.
What I am saying is that there is a scale of traffic frustration that must be dragged kicking and screaming into the light...and beaten soundly.
So... imagine that you are on your way to work. You didn't sleep in or hit the snooze button once too many times. You didn't dawdle over breakfast, or sit too long in the bathroom reading when you should have been leaving. You left on time, didn't turn off for a coffee or anything... you are acting responsibly and yet... you are about to be late for work. You are about to risk your job for a reason beyond your control.
So -reasons for traffic.
Weather- The weather often has a way of messing with visibility or making driving conditions less than optimal..leading to accidents, mechanical issues and FEAR.
Accident(s) - Sh@t happens. Someone wasn't paying attention, or going too fast or just unlucky and crunched his of her wheels, blocking a lane or two in the process. Everyone in that lane is going to have to go around them until a towtruck can arrive to get the car out of the way. As it stands... it is not horrible, but there are complications -and those,..well...
Stalls and mechanical issues - Very much like accidents, but usually you can't inflict blame on the person for innatention. Complications also apply here.
Construction- like accidents and mechanical issues, they mess up traffic because they tend to close lanes, force people to go around or deviate onto unknown routes. The latter also slows people down because they get people lost...which will slow them down (see Fear)
FEAR - Some people just cannot drive in less than optimal conditions, and sometimes, not even then. These are the people who should stay off the road most of the time. They are the types who brake early, often and without particular reason. This kind of randomness makes other drivers nervous and overly cautious and causes an overall slowdown and traffic. I call this invisible traffic. You cannot see the cause of it - there is no warning and no way of stopping it beyond getting the fearful driver off of the road.
Rubbernecking- This is one of those complications from accidents and stalls. Drivers passing by an accident or a stall HAVE to slow down and take a look for themselves. They HAVE to see if there is any blood. They HAVE to see the damaged car. Why? Because when they get to wherever they are going, they HAVE to tell everyone about it and those people will want details! **This is made far worst thanks to social media. The audiences are MUCH bigger than they ever were before Facebook and Twitter. It is also made worst thanks to cell-phones which can take pictures - because a picture is worth 1000 words and who cares if you mess up the traffic behind you! That picture MUST happen!
Rudeness - This is perhaps the most frustrating cause of traffic. Rudeness comes in many different guises. Sometimes, it looks like tail-gating (which makes people nervous and may cause accidents). Sometimes, it comes form not letting people merge, which causes slowdown in the lane of the rude person and also the lane of the person trying to merge and being denied entry. **This is a shooting offence in my mind - thanksfully, we have tight gun-control laws up here, so the idiots get off with mere threats of violence. This is another form of invisible traffic and it only takes one or two rude drivers to cause a world of hurt int he form of traffic for thousands of other drivers.
I can deal with the first four any day of the week and twice on Sundays. The last three on the other hand.. kill them all!
Until driverless cars make an appearance on a grand scale and turn getting to work into a mechano-socialist paradise where NOBODY drives their own cars and thus nobody gets into accidents, or causes traffic due to fear, rubbernecking or rudeness - until then, my friend.
FUCK TRAFFIC!!!
I hate you long time!
Have a good trip home and - please...don't be an assh@le!
