Ramblings From Justin Penney

...all the time... but damn, it sucks. And it's so stupid the way that it exists.

I firmly believe that the automatic transmission is to blame for the state of traffic. If even a quarter of the people on the road had manual transmissions they would start leaving realisitic gaps in traffive that would absorb all the hasty abnormalities. When I'm in my car or on the bike I leave a larger space because I don't want to wear my left foot, or hand, out working the clutch. I know that one large space will destroy a large rubberneck easily... and I do that simply out of laziness.

But I guess it's not really lazy since I'm doing a lot more than the auto people who have a "Go" and a "Stop" button. When I drive the van (which I have been lately since my commute is shorter than my wife's) I start to get lazy and close the gaps in the traffic even tbough I know it just makes it worse. I never do that in my manual vehicles. I have to make a concious effort to leave space.

As I think back about all of the accidents I've seen the past week every single one of them was completely avoidable had the people just left a little room.

# posted by Justin @ 1:53 AM