Five Speed Chatter: Is it a Battle or a Commute? (Part 1) By Ash Seidl-Staley Images courtesy of the Author ince my wife and I have S moved to the quiet little town of Forney, the time we spend commuting to and from work has grown exponentially. Technically, Jenny’s commute has doubled. She went from spending around twenty-five minutes driving through Plano and on the President George Bush Turnpike to fifty minutes driving on three separate highways from the opposite end of the Metroplex. Before sympathy for Jenny starts rolling in, you must know that my commute has increased by a factor of eight! Given that I had it coming -- I have been spoiled living in Plano for the past six years. On any given day, it would take me seven minutes to get to work, nine if there was traffic or if I were to hit the solitary traffic light in my path. Now, my commute, if I’m lucky that is, is fifty minutes. But for a matter of simplicity, let’s just call the running average an hour. Now that I spend a heck of a lot more time on Texas’ roadways, highways, and tollways, I have finally come to realize just how busy and overcrowded the Dallas/Fort Worth area really is. I mean, can we get more lanes on Highway 80, please? How about an extension for the George Bush Turnpike that crosses Lake Ray Hubbard and goes into Heath? Doesn’t anyone realize that hopping off the highway only to get back on two exits down is part of the reason why there is congestion in the first place? I think about questions like these, as well as many others, as I travel through Forney, Sunnyvale, Mesquite, Garland, Rowlett, Richardson, and Plano. Yes, you read that right, I travel through seven cities to get to and from work each and every day. I can switch my route some by swapping Sunnyvale and Mesquite for Rockwall and Heath, but by doing that I’m really just giving up highway speeds for a 45 mph speed limit on a two lane road that may or may not have a tractor on it. To be honest, most days it’s not the duration of the drive that gets to me; it’s the terrible driving of the people I am forced to share the roadways with! I mean, really, is this a commute or a full on battle royale? During the past few months both my patience and my sanity have been tested by a cornucopia of crappy driving. I will be taking the time this month, as well as next month, to discuss some these occurrences, and to describe some of the things I’ve noticed about DFW’s drivers. I’m sure that we all deal with some of these on a daily basis, so discussing them here might prove to be therapeutic, right? I sure hope so; those of us with terrible commutes could use some relief every now and then. Most of the terms and concepts I use to describe these horrible driving habits will be familiar to you, but I am sure that there are some that you might not have seen, read, or heard since your last driving exam with the Department of Motor Vehicles. Let’s start things off with a simple one: The Tailgater. We all know about the drivers that pop up out of nowhere in the rearview mirror. Usually, you miss them coming up into your car’s sacred spaces because they can’t seem to stay in one lane for very long and instead, weave in and out of traffic for miles and miles. But once they are behind you, tailgaters cannot help but make their presence known. They honk their horns, flail their hands about, and scream “get the (expletive) out of the way” while listening to something obnoxious on KISS-FM. Tailgaters constantly accelerate and brake, basically pump-faking your back bumper, which in turn makes you nervous, a little frustrated, and a whole lot of angry. Now I don’t know about you, but there have been numerous times where I will be apprehensively going 47 in a 40, and still have a SUV crowding my back end! Like, seriously, how is 7 mph over the speed limit not fast enough? For some I guess it is not. The Texas Driver’s handbook offers up the term Velocitation Effect in an attempt to justify the speed demon inside all tailgaters, but I’m not convinced. The velocitation effect is the effect that traveling at a constant high rate of speed has on a driver that makes the driver feel like any reduction in speed is way too slow. As a result, the driver fails to slow down enough to safely drive on a city’s roads. I think tailgaters are more inclined to just be unsavory reprobates than velocity addicts, but what do I know? What I do know is how to make tailgaters even more aggravated than they already are, which is by brake-checking them, and/or purposefully decelerating to the actual speed limit while making sure that there is a car next to you doing the same. I tell you what -- there is nothing better than blocking a tailgater for a few blocks, watching him swerve out of multiple lanes trying to get around, see him finally get out from behind the blockade and speed off, only to be pulled over by the Rowlett police department for going 56 in a 40! Stay tuned for part two of this article next month, in which we will be discussing wolf packs, drivers that swerve, the problems with cruise control, and, thanks to Governor Abbot, Texas’s newest laws as they relate to texting and driving. Until then, stay safe during battle and as always . . . Wrench on Mavs! 28 <strong>July</strong>
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