Random Topic Generator: Traffic

Warning: The following article is an over exaggerated rant because I needed to get something off my chest.

We’ve all experienced traffic. You’ve been driving down a country road, or along a motorway at a steady 70MPH and the next minute you’re coming to a complete standstill. As far as the eye can see, nothing but cars, vans, and lorries stationary on the road, unmoving. That’s usually the worse-case scenario, and there are three main reasons as to why you’ve stopped – slow moving vehicles up ahead, general build-up of traffic as everyone decided to go in this direction at once, or those dreaded roadworks that goes on for miles and no one is ever seen actually working; each one adding minutes to your journey.

The worse time you want to be stuck in traffic is when going home. The day has been long, you’re tired, you just want to go home and rest before climbing into bed and falling asleep. Except, you can’t do that, because the journey has suddenly turned from a 10-minute journey to a 30-minute journey. The efficiency of traffic lights and roundabouts are usually steady enough to keep the traffic moving, albeit slowly, but moving nevertheless. I don’t mind if I’m moving slowly, because at least I am going somewhere, instead of having been stopped for what was only a minute but felt so much longer. What I absolutely hate the most is when the traffic moves only a few metres before coming to another agonisingly long wait before moving only a couple of metres again. You’ve moving – the journey will take less time than if you were still a few car lengths behind waiting for a glimmer of hope, but constantly stopping, then moving so little distance annoys me more than anything else about traffic.

A close second is the car in front. The car in front of the car in front of you has started moving. That means you can soon get going. Even if you do have to come to a stop again, at least you have moved, so there is some positivity there. However, the car in front of you is still stationary. Have they not noticed? Should I give them a small beep of the horn to alert them of the change that’s happened? Have they broken down? No, they have noticed, they would get annoyed at me for beeping my horn so unnecessarily, and of course they haven’t broken down. What they’re actually doing is just waiting. For what? If the car in front of them stops, I can see their logic of not moving, because they would only have to stop a few metres in front of them. But sometimes, the gap keeps growing, and they haven’t moved. I just want to get home, and the car in front of me is preventing me from doing that, for no apparent reason other than because they think they are following some logic.

You’re sitting at a junction. You can’t pull out because there’s dense traffic on the road. All you can do is wait, and wait, and wait, until you find a gap big enough to hurry out, or you get fed up and start forcing your way out, but that’s usually when you’ve snapped. Just before that happens, someone stops and flashes their lights at you, letting you pull out. Whilst you do now have to stop and wait for the traffic to start moving again, at least you’re on the road, and not having to wait until the heavy traffic as either thinned out, or the very last car has passed you. That person is a saint, and you thank them generously. They’ve fulfilled their good deed for the day and you’re the one they’ve helped. All that annoyance and hatred you’ve built up waiting at the junction has been blown out of the window.

Flip that scenario onto the other hand, when the car in front of you lets someone out – surely they’re increasing the length of the never-ending queue, preventing you from getting anywhere sooner than if they had kept going. That person may have fulfilled their good deed for the day, but it’s completely neutralised by how you’re now red in the face with anger.

However, it must be noted that someone waiting at a junction finds you on a good day, you may let them out, to which they give a gesture of thanks, you acknowledge their gesture and you keep going. When they just pull out without even saying or doing anything, that’s when you’ve realised a huge mistake has just happened. You have singlehandedly increased the length of the never-ending queue because you thought you would be helpful and kind for once and all you get in return is nothing. The person behind you must be furious with you, and I don’t blame them. I’m furious with myself. Now I want to get home even more, but I can’t, because I’ve made the queue longer.

Then the traffic starts thinning out. You’re able to pick up a decent amount of speed and stay there. You’re finally on your way home, and when you do eventually get home, it’s a huge relief, and in a way, a victory, because you’ve survived yet another battle with the unrelenting beast that’s the unpredictable traffic.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)