NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/alt/peeves/19762

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-28 | 4.8 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Superuser)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Re: Traffic Peeves
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 26 Jan 93 19:37:05 GMT
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Cc: [e-mail]

[e-mail] (Geoff Miller)
>
>I forgot to add the summary.
>
>Peeve:  Taking three hours to complete what's normally an hour-and-45-
>minute drive, and spending more time with my foot on the brake pedal than
>on the accelerator.

Gaah!

Geoff baby, that is _not_ substantial.

Six weeks ago I set out to drive the M1 motorway in England. The M1
is probably the UK's most boring road; a straight 200 mile haul
at a steady 80mph (except when passing police patrol cars). The
weather was dank and cold; the light dim (twilight at 4pm): and
the previous week I'd had my car stereo ripped off. Luckily I had
a passenger; we were prepared for about three hours of boredom
and sort of expected to have to keep each other awake and amused.

Well, fifty minutes south of Leeds I ran into rapidly thickening
traffic. I hit the anchors and lit the hazard flashers to stop the
truck behind from piling into me; then we came to a standstill and
were stuck in a jam. The temperature was around zero and it was
two in the afternoon.

Now, you know what it's like to sit in traffic for an hour. It's a
peeve and a half, but you've got that tape to listen to or that
passenger to talk with. But after about an hour and a half things
begin to get strained. You take it in turns to get out and go walkies
up the carriageway past the stationary traffic. Every half hour or
so you turn the engine on for a few minutes to keep the engine block
from freezing; it's chilly out there and you're damned glad you've
got that flying jacket. Your friend is irritated but she's taking it
well and you bullshit a bit, keeping each other's spirits up. You don't
begin to really worry until two hours after you ran into the tailback,
when you hear from a trucker down the road that the queue's backed
up for eight miles ahead of you and six behind.

Then you see a convoy of twelve recovery trucks and a mobile crane
coming up the hard shoulder.

Another hour and you're getting desperate. You've been in that car
for three hours and you're bored silly. Conversation's run dry, there's
no food, and you're worried about fuel. (The petrol gauge is broken;
you filled the tank up back in Leeds, but you don't know how much
you've used up idling in the jam before you switched off.) You have
a brainwave and remember some snacks you stashed in the boot, which
answers one problem; and shortly after you get them out, the jam
begins to move.

Then it stops. Starts again. Stops again. Inches forward in first
gear. You can't take your left foot off the clutch and the engine's
running too hot and the heater seems to be packing up. Night is falling
and there's freezing fog outside as the three lanes of traffic
inches forward, averaging less than a mile per hour. And you are
slowly getting more and more tired, and worried that the car isn't
going to make it.

We were in that jam for eight hours.

I pulled in at the first service area and nearly fell over as I got
out. Julie and I hit the fast food area for stacks of coffee and some
serious sugar, and agreed to press on. We'd managed to make sixty
miles in some nine hours, and there were another hundred and twenty
miles to go. Julie doesn't drive: so after I dragged myself together
it was back behind the wheel ...

It took three hours to cover that 120 mile stretch. Freezing fog, natch,
at night with loonies in BMW's burning past at well over the clear-weather
speed limit.  And the heater _did_ pack in. Yeah, it took a total of
12.5 hours to make a trip which normally takes three and a quarter,
and can take as little as two (if you really put your foot down). Now
_that's_ a traffic jam, Geoff. Four hours without a heater in sub-zero
temperatures. Pardon me if I sound like I'm getting on your case, but
dammit, I don't think I've peeved about this trip properly yet. The
memory alone is enough to make me shudder.

In fact, it was so bad that it made my mind up for me about an issue
that's been bugging me for a while.

I'm going to sell my car ... and not replace it. There are too
many of the buggers on the road today. I don't use it for work, I
don't enjoy driving, I'm not the world's safest motorist, and I
don't need the bills. The cost of keeping a car in the UK -- even
one that's fully depreciated -- is equivalent to a lot of inter-city
rail fares, even at British Rail's inflated prices.

And I can do without the thefts, too.

-- Charlie 'pedestrian' Stross
aka
[e-mail]  [e-mail]