Back to School Traffic: Rush Hour Survival Tips

Every Wednesday morning I drive to the northeast-most edge of the city, park the car in commuter parking and take the subway in the rest of the way to work. I do this because Wednesday night is Kung Fu night at Dave’s and I drive to his house right after work.

This weekly ritual usually doesn’t add much in terms of time for my commute in the morning, but it is more costly, monetarily and in terms of wear and tear on my car—not to mention the environment and my nerves.

I’ve been commuting to the city for the past decade now and many of those years were spent behind the wheel of my own vehicle. Only in the past 3 years have I committed myself to using public transit. I too was one of those people who felt more comfortable in my own car, who found the train to be inconvenient and uncomfortable. I was convinced that the monetary advantages of public transit didn’t come close to supplanting my own self-entitled right to the privacy and comfort of getting to work alone, in my own car. I was—of course—lying to myslelf.

What’s even worse is that I would probably still be driving to and from work every single day, if my crappy little Neon hadn’t died and bled out on Bayview Ave that one faithful afternoon on my way home from work 3 years ago. It was the head-gasket…again! When the tow-truck driver arrived on the scene, I asked him how much it would be, and when he told me. I just signed the ownership of the car over to him to pay for his trouble. I’ve been taking the train ever since and I’ll never look back.

Granted, making the switch from driving everyday to taking the train instead is a big change, but trust me when I say that it’s a good change. Here are just some of the advantages of taking public transit to work over driving:

• Save on parking
• Save on auto insurance
• Save on auto maintenance
• Save on gas
• Save on traffic tickets
• Keep your blood pressure low
• Catch up on / get a head start on work (Note to contractors like me: time you spend working on your laptop/PDA/blackberry on the train is billable time.)
• Read a book or ten
• Read the paper
• Listen to music
• Watch a DVD movie or TV show on a portable DVD player
• Play a game on your PSP
• Save the environment
• Catch up on sleep (my favourite)
• I can go on and on and on…

Advantages of driving:

• You’re on your own timetable
• You’re alone (maybe)
• You’re more comfortable (maybe)
• Don’t you feel like a selfish bastard?

What some people—like I was, pre-neon-death—don’t realize, is that it’s not just their car that they’re working to the bone when they drive in to work every single day, it’s also their nerves. I couldn’t believe how stressed I was, driving to work everyday! I only realized how bad I had gotten when—after taking the train for a while—I drove in for the first time in a long time. This old, familiar feeling began to creep up in me. I couldn’t put my finger on it right away, but I was able to identify it later as…rage.

These days, I’m able to shrug the feeling off, since I only have to endure the drive in once a week. Still, it does seem to get worse every year around this time. Traffic congestion in and around the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) has gotten progressively worse every year for as long as I can remember. As an increasing number of people chose to live outside the city—like me—and still work downtown. This is putting a great strain on our road-system.

Summers are a bit better as students are out of school—there are a number of Universities and Colleges in and around the GTA—and when school is out, you can clearly feel a difference in traffic congestion. Combine that with the fact that many people take most of their holiday time off during these months and you have a commuting situation that is simply heaven.

But as soon as Labour Day passes, everyone gets back to the grind…including a new crop of inexperienced commuters. First-year students. Kids. Young people who have—for whatever reason—chosen not to live the collegiate experience on campus, but to commute daily to class. As if they won’t get enough of that once they join the work force…but I digress…

These inexperienced commuters are the new plague of rush hour. They’re not only less experienced, but they’re more aggressive, less attentive and way less patient. This is a deadly combination.

This morning was my first drive in since Labour Day. There were already slowdowns in 3 different stretches of highway that aren’t normally slow. Some of it was due to congestion, but according to the radio traffic reports, there were also accidents.

I personally witnessed reckless driving all around me. There were the usual morning groomers (people who shave, do their hair, apply make-up, get dressed, clip and buff nails while driving), the cell-phone talkers (including a new breed of Blackberry readers, I shutter to think the stupidity involved in such people), the weavers, swervers, drifters and road line ignorers, the slow drivers, the fast drivers, the shoulder drivers, the don’t-yield-to-emergency-vehicles-drivers (the lowest-of-the-low), the lane-change-without-checking-the-blind-spot-drivers, the lane-change-without-signalling-drivers…they were all present…just in larger numbers.

My blood pressure shot up at once.

With all of this going on, how can we expect those who are new to the commute to be able to survive?

I thought I’d outline some survival tips that will help. This is, by no means, a complete list, and I may add to it at a later time.

Rush Hour Driving Tips

• There is a reason blind people can’t drive and it has nothing to do with prejudice. It has everything to do with the fact that your most important tool in driving is not your car, but your eyes. KEEP THEM ON THE FUCKING ROAD! Don’t be doing anything that requires them to be anywhere else.
• Speaking of keeping your eyes on the road, I think Jim Morrision may have been onto something when he followed that line with, “…and your hands upon the wheel.” Opposable thumbs are what separate us from apes. Use them and the hands they’re attached to to handle the steering wheel! If you use your knees or elbows to steer so that you can hold your cell phone to your ear with one hand and the stick-shift, a coffee or a muffin in the other, then I can honestly and accurately say that a monkey could drive better than you.
• Those lines on the road are not the world’s longest line of cocaine, nor are they merely suggestions…They were put there by people who are way smarter than you or me, when it comes to keeping the flow of traffic constant and orderly. They’re not the problem, you are if you chose to ignore them.
• Try not to risk yours or anyone else’s life in order to get ahead one car-length.
• When you do make a lane-change, for Pete’s sake, thank the person who let you in front of him/her with a little wave. It’s a simple courtesy, who the hell taught you manners?
• In the same vein, if traffic is heavy and your right by an onramp, let one vehicle in in front of you. That one car length that you give up won’t mean a hill of beans compared to the Karma points you’ll earn…Plus if that person is a reader of this blog, he/she might even give a little wave of appreciation.
• It doesn’t matter how fast you are going. If you’re in the passing lane and someone is behind you, GET OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY! It’s called the passing lane for a reason! People in Europe have it right. No one EVER stays in the passing lane too long. In fact, they leave their flickers on as long as they’re in that lane, and only turn them off once they leave it. I don’t recall the last traffic jam I was in in Europe.
• Finally, and my BIGGEST pet peave. There are a cagillion other cars and drivers on the road, I can’t read any of their minds, so signaling before a lane change would be more than helpful!