On Fri, 4 May 2001, Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten wrote:
> <rant>
> I was out on the road too long yesterday, I guess. Drove nearly 400 km
> in one day. (And that is a lot by Dutch standard, especially if you
> know that most of that 400 km was traffic jam). Had to put up with all
> those a**holes that don't realise what speed limits and keeping
> distance is for. At one point the already reduced speed limit on the
> high way was further reduced to 50 kmh (so I didn't brake but took my
> foot off the gaspedal slowly reducing speed to get to that velocity)
> and this <insert name calling> truck driver thought that by honking,
> flashing lights and driving up so close that I could count the mashed
> flies on his grille I would be persuaded to increase my speed. (At
> that point I already could see the tail of a developing traffic jam a
> few km further down the road due to influx from another lane). I
> imagine he was either blind or has won his drivers licence in a
> lottery. I do stay cool but I just wish police would do something
> about that kind of driver. They are the ones causing traffic jams and
> much worse all those terrible accidents because of their agressive and
> inapropriete behaviour on the road. I do realise it is frustrating to
> be in traffic jams day after day after day. But if you can't take it I
> suggest you find another job that doesn't put you in those jams in the
> first place.
> </rant>
>
> Just had to get that off my chest.
I understand.
I'm reminded of 2 incidents:
1) When my mom was moving from New Hampshire to Virginia, she planned
that the first day of actual driving, we'd go from Keene, NH (which is a
lovely little city, and one I recommend for visiting) to Harrisonburg, PA.
We took a particular road south toward the interstate that goes through
Allentown, PA and Harrisonburg, PA (I-78?), and about 10 miles before we
hit the interstate, we stopped for gas. It was around sunset, and Mom has
a thing about driving at night, so guess what I got to do? Take over
driving, on a road I'd never driven on before (there are 2 roads
paralleling each other going south into Allentown, and it was the *other*
one I had some familiarity with), to get onto an interstate at a point I'd
never really seen before (I'd been on the interstate there, but not trying
to get on or off), with Mom navigating, and we goofed and had to circle
back. Once we got onto the interstate, it was scary. There were an awful
lot of big trucks, and most of the drivers were rude. I think that was
the most nerve-wracking driving I've ever had to do. There was one truck
that came up behind a smallish car in the left lane, and leaned on the
horn, when the little car was going as fast as the vehicle in front of it
(another big truck). I normally like to use the passing lane a lot, but I
decided not to that evening, given the behavior of the majority of the
truck drivers. When we got to the hotel in Harrisonburg and I parked the
car, I announced that I was NOT going to move it closer to the room once
we knew what the room was, even if that meant I had to haul everything in
myself. Once we got settled in the room and found the helpful restaurant
list, Mom asked where I wanted to go for dinner, and I replied I wanted to
go someplace within easy walking distance. I did not do any of the
driving the next day. The truck density thinned out considerably when we
hit the Maryland state line; we're not sure where they went, but Mom
declared "Good riddance!" when we realized we were out of that situation
the next morning.
2) The longest drive I've made in the past couple of years was taking a
friend up to Dallas so she could help her boyfriend pack up to move to
Austin. (I was going to help with packing, as well.) She was getting
over a bladder infection or something and wanted to use the bathroom about
every 45 minutes. We stopped here in Austin for me to top off my gas tank
and for both of us to use the bathroom, took a fast & efficient route to
the interstate north, and stopped in Waco, sometime after she'd wanted to
stop. We made it to Hillsborough without incident, and there was a
particular place I'd intended to stop at, but traffic was slowing down
awfully before we got to it, so I took an exit and stopped at the first
gas station/convenience store we got to. I put a little more gas in the
car, we used the bathroom, and I got back on. There was a horrendous
traffic jam building by this point. For awhile, we were averaging under
10kph. I called home on my cellphone and asked Dan to check the web to
see if there was any sort of report of an accident around there, and we
tried to find the closest local radio staion to see if we could get any
info there, but nothing doing. When we finally got up to where the
accident had occurred, they were just finishing clearing it up to where
they could let both lanes be open. (They'd had to close down both lanes
initially, which caused the slowdown & stop, and then they opened up one
lane so at least folks could start going through the bottleneck.) By that
point, my friend needed the bathroom again, so we took the next exit that
advertised it had a gas station. We also got snacks, it being past the
time we were supposed to be in Dallas to have lunch with her boyfriend.
(On top of that, I missed an exit in Dallas and had to wing it, but I'd
bought a map in Waco and my friend is pretty good at on-the-fly
navigation, so that was a minor incident compared to all that had gone
before.)
So I have sympathy on the truck situation, and sympathy on the traffic jam
during a long drive situation. I cannot imagine having to put up with
both of them late in pregnancy, though -- you deserve a medal for not
killing anyone, Sonja! :)
Julia
who doesn't even want to drive the 40 miles (65km) to San Marcos at this
point
