Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Gridlock in Garden State

                Where do you think is the most expensive piece of land?
                No, it’s not the principality of Monaco nor it is the Fifth Avenue in the New York city, it is our very own Garden State Parkway during the traffic jam (which is almost every day), located in the great state of New Jersey. In other expensive locals the demand for the real estate is based on square footage, but on GSP it’s based on inches. That’s right. People will roll over some one, literally, to get that ‘extra inch’. Misery loves Company- nothing proves it better than the drivers on GSP forming the endless traffic jams. The pained expressions of the obsessed drivers who never record a smile other than the maniacal grin, as if saying to the fellow drivers, “Welcome to Hell”!!
                We all studied during our elementary school days that Human is a Social animal. Well, you arrive on GSP and there is nothing social about this animal. It’s the jungle out there- Everyone for themselves. It truly is the survival of the fittest. Civility dies when you enter these gates of hell. Actually it’s worse than Hell, simply because you ‘pay’ to enter this hell!!
                Irrespective of whether you are a right-lane leisurely driver, a center-lane observer of the posted speed limit or a left-lane speed demon, any progress you made driving the way you do, will be annihilated as you approach congestion (nicer way to define a traffic jam).
                Congestion because of construction activity is painful, but understandable. It creates a hope that someday, in near future the ‘improvements’ will lead to the soothing of the traffic. But we all know that’s just a hallucination. Congestion because of Rubbernecking is just pathetic. It’s the cruelest form of psychological torture. Rubbernecking becomes beyond obnoxious when the driver poses a danger for others, either by slowing way down or by swerving because they aren’t watching the freaking road.
                What is Rubbernecking?  Remember the last time you were stuck in traffic, only to find after an eternity of inching along that the reason of the traffic jam wasn’t the minor fender bender but the curious drivers slowing down and craning their neck to witness anything gory. It’s maddening to realize that the whole delay resulted from one driver after the other slowing down to take a good look.
                I comprehend when something out of the ordinary happens that people are inclined to look. I get that, I do it myself, but not while driving. Rubbernecking to the point of slowing to a crawl during rush hour is just ridiculous.
                I am sure the story of traffic jams is all too well known to many of us, but the congestion on GSP is just a cut above.