Traffic jam

Wednesday, September 04, 2013

Civilization depends on people honoring rules, and following predictable routines. It is need that allows terrorists and con artists to thrive. Terrorists rely on people’s need for routine, predictability, and so as to know where to strike. Con artists rely on the frustration people feel when they are trapped in routine, and on the inherent need to step out and seem special, or to get something they cannot get as one of the masses.

Nobody wants to stand at the back of the line and wait their turn. So it is all the more pleasing to see natural or perhaps unnatural disasters frustrate these over ambitious souls and force them to wait on long lines such as the traffic jam between Jersey City and Bayonne we all went through today.

Concrete fell off the covered roadway in Jersey City and closed off several of the streets traffic needed to access the heights from the rest of Jersey City, and the overly aggressive, greedy fools who usually cut their way through traffic like race car drivers, fumed behind their steering wheels, forced to wait their turn when that’s the last thing they think they deserve.

I thought I could get around the frustration by going to the Hoboken office instead, but found when I got there I had forgotten my files in Bayonne, so had to trudge back up the hill and find another way.

The radio had warned about an “accident” on the turnpike extension.

Some radio broadcasts have stopped using the term “accident” because most are fully aware that these fender benders are caused by the same greedy breed who believes they are too above the fray to have to obey rules of order and generally cause misery to others as they collide with them in their rush to get ahead.

Fortunately, this accident had vacated by the time I got there and though I got in late in Bayonne, I got there without too much trouble, having swung through Secaucus to access the turnpike.

Of course, the lines of frustrated drivers remained on both sides of the covered roadway, and I got great pleasure in picturing all of the most those overly aggressive drivers stuck where they are because they’re too clever to ever think of an honest way to get where their going without having to run over somebody else to get there.

Bayonne never seemed so sweet to me, knowing that I’m not in a hurry to get anywhere else.