good day/bad day

this AM: bad. Traffic signal is out at intersection of two major roads.
Killed what little faith I had left in humanity - instead of following
accepted rules for dead signal, intersection turned into a free for all.
Kind of bad when you have five lanes crossing three. if I'd been a
cop I have no idea who I would have pulled over - every driver on the
damned road deserved a ticket. People would simply wait for someone in
the opposite direction to stop and then tailgate each other through the
intersection in a huge clump until someone going the opposite direction
got pissed off and simply forced his way in, then the process would
repeat itself on the other road. Unbelievable.

This PM: good. Dulles Toll Road, eastbound past the last tollbooth.
Drivers consistently stay in the last through lane until the gore, then
stop and wait for a "nice" person to let them over to get on the Beltway
(the Beltway ramps are consistently more backed up than the through
lanes, so queue-jumping like this is a good way to get ahead at the
expense of other drivers.) Today, two cop cars parked in the gore, one
officer out of the car, standing just off the roadway looking toward
oncoming traffic. I can only ASSume he was looking for people forcing
their way onto the offramp at the last minute; I actually saw someone do
that in front of me (and draw a couple horn honks) but I didn't get a
chance to see if he was waved over or not as the exit ramp lanes weren't
moving fast enough. It's about time - efforts like this can't help but
improve traffic flow, unlike the usual speed traps in the median.

nate

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