 |
| Miami Herald |
Please bear with me.
So we all know that South Florida is chock full of drivers who don't have a clue when it comes to operating a motor vehicle. We maintain quite a collection down here, gathering drivers from the jungles of Guatemala, the streets of New York City, the islands of the Caribbean, and the cornfields of the Midwest. We mix them all together in some kind of crazy concoction and throw them out into the streets with hardly any law enforcement oversight (thanks Florida taxpayers!) and expect them to gel and play nice.
This isn't another rant on driving in this place I like to call Jurassic Park. Rather it is an expression of exasperation at what has been a horrendous 5 days for yours truly on the roads of South Florida.
The following is the string of traffic jams that I've experienced in the last week.
Thursday Morning: Turnpike Extension Southbound @ Okeechobee Road, minor accident off on the left shoulder with FHP and Road Warrior on the scene. Should only be a minor delay but everyone passing by has to check to see if there is any gore so... 2 mile backup to I-75. I listen to at least 2 WIOD traffic reports and they mention nothing. Time wasted: 20 minutes.
Thursday Afternoon: Eastbound on 836 at the Airport, car rear ends school bus. Car is blocking right lane, bus is pulled off on right shoulder. Backup is past the Palmetto (1-2 miles?). Time wasted: 20 minutes.
Saturday Evening: Northbound on Turnpike about 1-2 miles north of Hollywood Boulevard. Mercedes catches on fire and is moved off to the shoulder. Traffic is at at a dead stop as I come up the on ramp from Hollywood Boulevard. Nowhere to bail so we sit. Finally get moving after about 15 minutes. Again, motorists go by the blackened German auto at a snail's pace and you can read driver's faces: is there any death for us to see on the way to dinner? Time wasted: 15 minutes.
Monday Morning: WIOD reports a backup on the Turnpike Extension, Southbound @ Okeechobee Road with traffic stretching all the way back to I-75. I opt for a route through Hialeah and it actually works out pretty good. Yay! Score one for me! Additional commute time: 10 minutes.
Monday Evening: Traffic comes to a dead stop on the Turnpike Extension northbound at NW 41st Street. The traffic sign over the road, which is generally fairly useless, advises of an accident at NW 106th Street. I opt for the far right lane and take the new 74th Street exit and decide to parallel the Turnpike north through Doral to NW 106th where I get back on the Turnpike. On the SOUTHBOUND side, there are numerous emergency vehicles in the process of removing a car from a small pond along the highway. Northbound travelers have slowed down to rubberneck and see if they can catch a glimpse of...well, you know. I speed home content that I just saved myself maybe 30 minutes of sitting in yet another accident-induced traffic jam. Additional commute time: 5 minutes.
I'm not sure what the rest of the week holds or whether I'm experiencing a dose of bad driving karma. I'm just glad I have a blog. This has been very therapeutic.
Thank you for listening.
.
10 comments:
80 percent of your traffic problems involve the Turnpike. All that delay, AND you're being charged extra for it?
"I hit myself on the head with a hammer. It feels so good when I stop."
The local traffic reports on the radio (specifically WLRN) are great if you live in Palm Beach and Broward Counties; I've learned the names of the roads and the places to avoid 50 miles north. I have sat in back-ups on southbound I-95 between downtown and the Rickenbacker for long periods of time when there's an accident blocking two lanes of traffic, but nary a word about it on the radio. But I am well aware of the car with a flat tire at the Woolbright Road exit in Boynton Beach.
I don't commute to work... I see this as adding years to my life even if it means sacrificing extra income. This would make me crazy. However, I suppose commutes are not any better in other major metro areas.
I rearended a guy at 106th right off the turnpike thanks to a traffic signal that had been out since before noon at an extremely busy intersection with no officer present to direct traffic. When the tow truck finally showed an hour and a half later, he spoke of the car in the lake, which we saw being pulled out as we got on the pike south. Lovely day, lemme tell ya!
I went through that intersection on my way back out to the turnpike. Light was blinking red for folks coming out of Flagler Station. Very busy on NW 106th and, of course, 50% of the drivers in South Florida have no clue what a flashing red means. That was a tough intersection.
Maria: Other metro areas do have their share of traffic jams and problems, for sure. But I think South Florida is unique in its collection of drivers who gave up giving a crap what any one else on the road thinks a long, long time ago. I will also add that whenever you have a driver who is used to navigating dirt roads at 30 mph and put them on the Don Shula Westbound at 4 PM, you're asking for a lot of interesting things to happen.
.
Have you tried getting onto South Beach any time over the past month? Total nightmare and it's only getting worse...
Yup. I was coming out of Flagler Station. Guy in front of me went to make the left and I followed behind him but he got cut off by a typical south florida asshole that had to speed up so he couldn't get out so he had to stop short. I ended up bumping him from behind. Sucked.
Rick, no doubt about that, for sure. It's a *chore* and a danger to drive here. When Carlos and I were filming our street peddler video in Hialeah following these guys with two cameras, it's a wonder we didn't get killed, let alone the street vendors. I've been using a lot of public transportation lately, so I'm seeing this from the pedestrian's point of view. It isn't even a safe county to walk in ... even in my low key 'hood in South Miami. You have to look over your shoulder, left, right ALL the time and not trust some a-hole isn't going to hit you.
Perhaps not so unusual; traffic nightmares are banal. The automobile promised autonomy, but it has delivered atrocity.
I second Maria de LA, not commuting is best. But if one can not the second best suggestion is to move closer to where your action is, which I presume is Miami-Dade. Are all those headaches worth it to be in Broward, I think not.
Post a Comment
Spam, vulgar language, trolling and off-topic comments are not tolerated at SFDB and your comment will be removed if it meets this criteria.