Posts from ‘Commuting’
For a number of reasons, warm-weather states are considered more driver-friendly places to operate a vehicle.
As a Chicagoan, I take a certain amount of pride in my ability to complain about the local traffic situation. To that end, though I loathe to report that my 17-mile trip from Consumer Guide’s Chicago-adjacent office to the sleepy Northwest Suburbs can take me more than an hour on the wrong day, I feel a least at little satisfaction knowing that I am a statistical outlier.
People will put stickers on their cars celebrating the animals they love, and the ones they want to kill.
It’s summer now, and my commute has gotten much, much easier—at least most days. Once school is out, and folks start hitting the vacation trail, the volume of vehicles on the road during prime AM and PM migration times is reduced considerably. That said, there’s no accounting for road construction, accidents, and whatever the hell it is that happens around here Friday evenings. I won’t mention snow–snow is still months way. One inch of fresh snow can easily double the duration of my normally 75-90-minute commute home.
Tom lists the three most egregious traffic blunders he’s witnessed while commuting to and from work.
Hitting the road is more than just the opening salvo of your daily commute.
Most of us understand that when you take the wheel, you enter into a social contract obliging you to make driving as easy and uncomplicated as you can for every other driver on the road.
The person in this crossover should already know what they want. If not, they should PARK AND GO INSIDE.
Hillary Clinton once wrote about it taking a village to raise a kid. Whether or not you’re a Clinton fan, it’s tough to fault her basic premise, that being that there are things outside of your control that will impact your child’s development.
My commute sucks. It’s not actually a long commute distance-wise, clocking in at 20 to 24 miles depending on how I go. My commute is, however, laced with heavy traffic, lots of merging, and seemingly countless ill-sequenced red lights. On a good morning, I will make the trip in 45 minutes. On a bad day, you can add another half hour to that tally. And, God forbid if it snowed or rained.
I’m a vegetarian. I’ve been meat-free for almost 25 years. I’m not militant about it, and I’m not the kind of vegetarian PETA approves of; I still eat dairy products, and I’m not as active as I should be in ridding my life of leather. I mention all this because, occasionally, I need to visit the drive-through in order to make it to work for an early meeting.
Google Street View car
Google Maps Street View is, undeniably, a very useful tool. Need to find a local business that you’ve never been to before? Check out a picture of the place before you go there so you know what to watch for. Planning a vacation? Scope out the hotel before you get there and make sure it’s as great as the website says it is. Wanna check out the Eiffel Tower in Paris or roam the streets of New York City while on your lunch break? Yep, you can do that too.
I turn 50 in a couple years. I am not particularly freaked by the notion of crossing the half-century line, nor has the prospect rendered me especially wistful.
However, I have spent some time contemplating just how long a stretch of time 50 years is. During that period, I was born, learned to read, did some joy riding, met my bride, and had a kid—and there’s a whole bunch more stuff I did between those benchmarks.
Tom’s got a list of six bad-driving habits that really tick him off.
I am pretty sure that if, as a nation, we could assess and grade the driving skills of all our drivers—and we could subsequently keep folks earning D and F grades off the road during rush hour—our collective commuting times would drop by at least half.
Seemingly nobody bought Saturn Relay minivans in the mid-2000s, yet Tom keeps seeing them on the road—disguised as taxis.
I haven’t had a eureka moment in the car in years. You’d think that someone with a long commute would occasionally, when deep in thought, stumble upon a perfect solution or a brilliant plan—but not so much. Unless you consider remembering to pick up sriracha and Diet Pepsi brilliant, I’m not getting too much mental business done while in transit.
Classic Cars
