Cars

10 Tangible Things Each Of YOU Can Do Do Make Traffic Better

All of these fit a theme. Which is: It’s not all about YOU out there. You are part of a collective. If everyone did these unselfish things, traffic would be much better:

1. Don’t tailgate. When you tailgate, you have to tap your brakes at the slightest speed change. You tap for a second, the guy behind you taps for two, the guy behind him for four, and so forth. Ripple effect that equals slowdown.

2. Use on ramps correctly. ACCELERATE! Get up to a speed that matches overall traffic, then merge seamlessly. Too many people here merge into 60 mph traffic at 40 mph. People hit their brakes, and again you get a ripple effect.

3. Honor the left lane. Move over when not overtaking cars. Yes, we’ve talked this one to death. Just do it.

4. Pick a lane and try to stick with it. Incessant lane changes for little real gain can cause slowdowns for much the same reason as the on ramp example above. Think ahead: Will the lane you’re in peter out soon, or turn into an exit-only lane? Get yourself in one that will see you through to your destination.

5. At stoplights, pay attention. If you’re first in line waiting at a light, be sure you’re pulled up far enough, as someone here already noted. Then PAY ATTENTION! Watch the light. When it changes, go! Driving is war, and you’ve got the point — so stay alert! That goes for everyone in the back of the line too, but we have way too many people at the front who use stoplight time to apply makeup, read the paper, change the radio station or eat french fries off their car’s floor.

6. Step on it. If traffic’s going 60 in your lane, why aren’t you keeping up with the guy ahead of you? Why do you feel the need to go 57? Again, you’re part of a collective out there. Join in, please.

7. Don’t go so fast you get pulled over. Because every time someone gets pulled over, it gums up traffic for the rest of us. People rubberneck and irrationally brake (like the trooper’s gonna drop you to go after them), and the aforementioned ripple effect ensues. So drive briskly, but don’t risk a ticket. If you’re going over 70 in a 60 mph zone, you’re risking it.

8. Look way down the road. I get on I-5 northbound everyday from Fairview at Mercer. Two lanes from Fairview are on ramp only. Invariably someone is sitting in the middle, on ramp only lane who wants to go straight. And he just sits there, and people are stuck behind him. It happens at every signal, because the mope didn’t READ THE SIGNS. Look ahead. Look far ahead. Look way past that big hurkin’ SUV you’re behind, if you can. The sooner you see signs and the sooner you see trouble, the sooner you can avoid messing up in a way that affects the rest of us.

9. Live the golden rule. Let people in. Wave when someone lets you in. I wish I had a buck for every time I’ve signaled to enter a gap in a lane, and the car that’s far back in that lane guns it to try to keep me from moving over. No wait, I don’t wish I had a buck, I wish I had his head on a pike. But you’ve gotta check that impulse too. Do unto others … you know.

10. Devote yourself to the task. This is covered in many of the points above, but driving is not simply something you do to pass the time while listening to the radio. Driving is the all-consuming task at hand.

So DO it — briskly, efficiently and competently. So that we can all get out of each other’s way.

Thank you.

Weekend Wrap

Burning TreeOn the way home from Saturday’s lunch at the Stoplight Deli and much to the chagrin of my wife I drove onto the median in the historic district to take a picture of the car near this small bright red tree. I have had my eye a one with bright yellow leaves, but someone was thoughtlessly holding some sort of party or wedding reception at the house on the corner nearest the tree and there were all kinds of cars and such in the way. A backup was spotted a block away and Donna was only mildly uneasy until I got back in the car and moved it a few feet to try a different angle, then, well…

Driving Miss Daisy Later that afternoon was the MMC‘s semi-annual Elmcroft Senior Drive where we go over to a local Assisted Living, don’t call me a nursing home, Center and take some of the residents for a little drive. We had 7 cars and seven riders, so we took a nice 35 mile drive up to and over the dam at Lake Thurmond. We had one Miata with a Porsche Boxster kit and a rep from the local dealer brought a 3rd gen Miata (unfortunately not the retractable hard top version) for us to use if we needed.

NBRIEDLater that evening was another MMC event, Game Night. A dozen of us gathered at the Butler’s to played games and eat finger foods. Four of us played a game of Scrabble while the other eight, in 2 groups of four, played dominoes. After a few games or so, a call went up to play something that all of us could partake in together. A couple people voted for charades, but two people, one of which was me, vowed to go stand outside in the rain rather than play that. We ended up playing Trivial Pursuit, the original Genus Edition which caused quite a few of us to have to relive the 80’s.

Yellow TreeToday we started our day with a leisurely breakfast of bagels at the Atlanta Bread Company followed by grocery shopping. We then drove over to Augusta because you can buy stuff earlier there than you can here on Sundays. We bought a wedding gift, some Christmas gifts for siblings that need to be tweaked and mailed around the country later and just shopped, not bought, gifts for a 3-year old who will be spending the holidays in a family shelter. He is one of several kids that people from ASCO are going to help out this year as we usually do. We then got a chicken salad sandwich to go from the Atlanta Bread Company that we ate overlooking the same dam I passed over yesterday. On the way home I passed by my yellow tree and the photos I took were kind of disappointing, not at all like I envisioned them. For the record we ate dinner at home, not the Atlanta Bread Company.

Started up, went down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 460

48,000 Leaves

OverlookThat is the average leaf count on a mature maple tree* and coincidentally, the mileage the Emperor passed on the way to to meet the participants of the MMC Leaf Peeping Expedition. Over 400 miles and 11 hours later we are home and just a little tuckered out.

We had pretty much the average turn out for our club on an event recently, 3 cars. I threatened to cancel if at least 4 cars didn’t show up, but that was an empty boast as my navigator told me that even if we were the only car we we going on the run. The six of us devoured enough breakfast at the Cracker Barrel to sustain us for a week in the Amazon before setting out in search of chlorophyll challenged leaves. The first 11 miles were Interstate, but after we got to two-lane blacktop 2/3 of the tops folded down. The sun was just beginning to peek over the tree tops and the temps were in the low 60’s so the windows and wind blockers were still up.

After our first pit stop and because one couple had yet to experience them, we made a stop at the Georgia Guidestones, AKA the American Stonehenge. The journey then continued up the eastern edge of Georgia. A quick dip into SC before ending up at Black Mountain State Park back in north Georgia. Two years ago when we did this trip with the Club we were about two weeks late and the vistas were of a uniform brown. This time we hit at just about peak and the mountains were very colorful.

Lunch was at the renown Dillard House just up the road from the state park. The six of us devoured enough food at lunch to sustain us on a circumnavigation of the globe. After eating we took a winding road to Highlands, NC where we lost one car to shopping in the downtown. Donna and I, along with, the appropriately named Autumn and Dave, gassed up and headed down the mountain and back into SC.

Highway 28 from Highlands back to the flatlands is a great Miata road full of twists and turns and all manner of decreasing radius bends. I won’t mention any names, but one of this crew really regretted the amount of food they consumed at lunch. About halfway through the good stuff we came up on a Mazda Tribute (the mini-SUV) who obliviously didn’t get zoom-zoom memo. He was going around the turns so slow we could have passed him on a skateboard. With no place to really pass and with two cars to boot we played whip with him for about 20 miles, alternately slowing way down letting him get a “big” head start and then charging back at a more appropriate Miata speed.

Awesome trip, but a long day, so I’m glad we only do it once a year.

* Oh yeah, I made that leaf count statistic up so it would fit the car’s mileage.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 436

Why?

At ASCO both 1st shift assembly and fabrication workers starts work at 7:00 AM. One manager also starts his business day at 7:00 AM. When he comes in a little before the hour he parks where ever he can, along with the bulk of the other employees. Our small 3rd shift gets off work at seven and after about 15 minutes they’ve cleared out of the front couple of rows in the parking lot.

Donna and I start our work day at 7:30 and we always get there around 7:15-7:20. This means on most days as we pull into the lot we see said manager as he walks back out of the building, goes over to his car and moves it to a parking spot in the front row as close to the door as possible.

Why?

So at the end of the day he can get out faster? Nope. When he leaves work there are maybe a half dozen other office types leaving at the same time, no crowd. Plus the close to the door spots have a longer route out of the lot because they have to travel the whole length of a row before turning towards the exit.

So he doesn’t have to walk so far to get into his car? Nope. Maybe that is true for that final trip, but what about the whole *extra* trip out and back to move the car?

So why?

Doesn’t he know that every time he starts his car he is causing extra engine wear? By some estimates those cold starts account for 60% of all engine wear. What about the extra gas burned? the wear and tear on the door locks, ignition switch, gear lever, etc.

He is not the only one who pulls these kinds of parking lot stunts either. There are probably a half dozen hourly employees that rush to their cars at breaks and lunch so they can move up closer to the door if one of their fellow employees has left a spot open because they had to leave the building for some reason. Even if it is 20 feet because the spot is in front of them one row.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 420

One Cheek Landing

Went on my usual 3-mile rollerblading loop this evening. The middle mile is around the one mile walking track surrounds the city’s recreation center. I enter on one side and at about the 3/4 mark the trail it passes between the parking lot and the main road. Cars come in on one lane and they exit in two more, one for right turns and one for lefts. Cars are supposed to yield to walkers and skaters and almost always do. Today one of them didn’t for me.

As I skated towards the entrance I looked behind me so as not to be ambushed by a car swooping in from the road. I then looked forward and could see a big sedan coming out in the left lane and I slowed a bit to make sure he was stopping. When I saw that he was, I continued forward. Trouble was there was a smaller car coming in the right lane, I noticed late, and the driver didn’t even see me at all. I braked hard and it really wasn’t going to be enough, so I turned hard right into the space between the two cars. My right skate came out from under me, dumping me on my right butt cheek.

I got back to my feet and thanked the guy in the car that stopped and looked over at the one that didn’t, who was sitting at the stop sign before entering the main drag, and gave him the evil eye in his rear view mirror. I think he felt bad and was waiting to see if I was alright before going, but I just skated back on my way with wounded pride and a pain in the butt.

I’m still sore 5 hours later and I’m betting that sucker is going to be purple by tomorrow.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 398

Going To Puerto Rico?

Donna spent 2 years in Puerto Rico as a kid and has fond memories of that time. Going back there to visit has always been thought in her mind.

Well, a couple days ago her friend Sally (of State Department fame) emailed to say that once she is done with her tour of duty in Namibia next February she was going to be in the states for a few months before heading off to her next assignment. First she will be spending some time in Louisiana with family and then a fellow embassy friend was lending her their condo in Puerto Rico for a week. A plan was hatched to kill two birds with one stone, a visit to PR and get to see Sally at the same time.

We weren’t planning on spending a whole week with Sally just maybe an afternoon and an evening meal. Sally was going to be spending time with her mom and her daughter. Donna and I would spend a couple days in Fajardo were she spent her early teens when her father was a sea plane pilot flying a Gumann Goose for Antilles Air Boats. Donna actually studied Algebra in Spanish, which explains why she asks me to solve all the quadratic equations we run into in our daily lives. A visit to the only rainforest in the National Park system and a bioluminescent bay were also on the schedule. The next three or four days would be spent exploring the central mountains and the quieter south & west of the island. Saturday while out shopping we bought a book called “Let’s Go Puerto Rico on a Budget.”

That $15 may save us a lot of money.
Driving:

Traffic is heavy; many people disregard speed limits, neglect to use turn signals, and cut off other cars. Markers such as stop signs are treated more like suggestions than rules. – Carjackings are common in Puerto Rico, especially in big cities. To avoid nighttime carjackings they have passed a law that drivers do not have to stop at red lights from midnight to 6AM. Central mountain roads tend to be narrow with sharp curves, poor visibility and frequent one lane washouts. The greatest danger is not the roads, but rather the local drivers who often use the whole road in narrow spots and drive at high speeds around sharp turns.

Health:

There are no required inoculations to visti Puerto Rico, but travelers should have the following vacines up to date; MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), DTaP or Td (diphtheria, tetnus and pertussis), IPV (polio), Hib (haemophilus influenza B), HepB (hepatitis B). Make sure the food you eat is fully cooked and the water is clean for drinking.

Time:

Puerto Ricans have a much more laid back sense of time than most Europeans and North Americans. Things get done when they get done. Restaurants do not maintain strict closing hours and will stay open as long as people are still around. If an establishment is empty, it will likely close early. Museums and stores frequently change opening hours and will close if someone who is supposed to work happens to be sick or unavailable.

After reading all that and reading a bunch of web reviews of tours, tourist spots and accomodations we have pretty much talked ourselves out of going.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 390

Andy Jones

Andy JonesWashed the car this morning in preparation for today’s MMC gathering for the Sno-Cap Drive In’s 42nd Anniversary. We had a pretty decent showing of cars, six, but all of us were late arrivals, so we were beat to the shady spots under the awning by the Corvettes and the VWs.

I was a few minutes late because I stopped for an impromptu photo shoot at the empty Andy Jones car dealer lot. Andy Jones opened a Mazda dealership in Aiken a year or so after I bought my first Miata. A couple years later they moved 15 miles west to this shop in North Augusta. Now they have packed up and moved 20 miles further west to Augusta, GA.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 348