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Thursday, April 12, 2012

traffic king

I had some company this morning on the street.  Well, other than the usual company of traffic and pedestrians.  It was Chris, the part-time IT guy from school.

Chris, meet the blog.  Blog, meet Chris

He showed up across the street, set up a video camera and tripod, and began filming (is that an obsolete word?) the morning traffic.  I noticed that the traffic behaved a little better than usual.  I guess there's something about a guy with a video camera that gets people to fall in line, moreso than some chick in a loud vest with a stop sign. 

Once my shift was up, I crossed over and joined him.

"Hey, whatcha filmin'?", I asked.

He said his supervisor wanted him to film the morning speeders for some project.  While he was there, there'd only been one really blatant one - a dry cleaning van of all things. 

"Yeah, for some reason, they behave a little better in the morning.  It's more of a speedway in the afternoons", I told him.

"Oh, good to know", he said, "Maybe I'll come back out in the afternoon".

Then we wondered why that was.  Chris said he probably has more inclination to speed in the morning, to get to work on time.  After work, there's no rush.  I don't know why it is either.  School is out before the traditional "rush hour", so I'm not sure what demographic the afternoon drivers are from.  There are probably more high school kids going through at that time, but it's not them. 

It's women and old men for the most part. 

Women get the prize for worst drivers overall.  They speed, they go through red lights, they're more likely to be on the phone.  I just want to say, "COME ON!!  THAT'S NO WAY TO REPRESENT!"

Next are the old men.  By "old", I mean old enough so that every hair they have is white. 

The best drivers are clearly men on motorcycles.  Doesn't matter the age, doesn't matter the style of motorcycle.  Even the young guys on bullet bikes behave in a school crossing.  Once out of the school zone, however, they punch it. 

Of course, this is a small sample and probably not necessarily representative of traffic patterns in general.  Still, if we were to draw a conclusion?

Beware the dry cleaning vans being driven by women. 
.

11 comments:

terri said...

I'm not surprised that it's the women driving badly. Driving to work in rush hour traffic, whenever someone is driving like an idiot, it is usually a woman.

agg79 said...

Hard to measure those reactions. Maybe it's all those women drivers talking on the phone while going to get their dry cleaning. Would be interesting to see his video clip of the various drivers and how they react. I think the presence of the camera makes them slow down a bit. It does bring a thought to mind that maybe you could set up a fake camera on your corner and get some of the crazies to slow down.

ShadowRun300 said...

Beware of women drivers in black Mustangs who doze off after a long day of work, or decide to pee in a bucket while backed up in traffic, or who eat meals in the car because there's no time at work....
Those women can be pretty dangerous too. ;)

Rock Chef said...

People complain about female drivers, but I am convinced that if I ever get squished, the squisher will be a guy.

Scott said...

On a slightly relevant note, I share a slightly naughty joke:

Why do women have such difficulty parallel parking?

Because all their lives they've been taught that this [hold your hands six inches apart] is twelve inches!

Abby said...

Sadly.

Abby said...

Great idea! Gonna start looking for a cheap tripod!

Abby said...

Yes, those are out there too! We've all learned much from you... er... HER!

Abby said...

Bicycle defensively RC! No squishing allowed!

Abby said...

AH, a slightly different version of a joke I've heard before!

Rebecca S. said...

Well. Who knew? Even though it's illegal here, women are the worst for being on their cellphones while driving. And all I know is, my husband is a much better driver than I am.