So We're in the Good Range...

For now. But holiday driving still sucks. I've said it before, but I'll post again: can't the United States come up with a set of genuine choices in transportation? Basically, less than a thousand miles, you've got one choice: a private car. More than a thousand miles, you've got one choice: an airplane.

Actually, I'll cut SOME slack to the airlines--it's not my favorite way to travel, but it's fast. When you're going a long way, speed helps.

But for shorter haul trips there needs to be some kind of rail-based service. If nothing else, it would help keep traffic down to the point that the highway system can function safely within its design parameters. Interstates are NOT designed for bumper-to-bumper traffic. Period. Every time I hear the term "chain-reaction-crash" on the television news, I want to goddamned pick up the phone and shout at the people responsible for such Soviet Style transit choices--except that this "choice" has been in the making for the last sixty years or so.

Periodically, I'll see the science pages of the paper report on the latest attempt to "automate" the highways. But trains already do this--they allow a high concentration of people to transit in a much smaller amount of space. And, besides--if you can't trust the road crews to keep the asphalt and concrete in proper maintenence, are you really gonna trust them to keep up the immensely complicated systems that will be required for an automated highway system to function properly? Hell, I bet automated highways NEVER make it, not the least reason being that any State or national actuarial official would shit thirty pound bricks before allowing the State of Federal government to assume liability for a system failure. And if you think the private sector will pick up the slack--ha--don't make me laugh.

I've also noted below (am too lazy to find the link, but it's in the archives, probably from around the LAST major holiday), that even the hard-core acolytes at the altar of the automobile should think about supporting mass public transit. It's in THEIR self-interest. Car-worshippers would no longer have to deal with the veritable junkyard of metal plying the highways at a snail's pace (because they are substandard vehicles).

Have you noticed that many drivers, especially on the highway, have a maddening tendency to tailgate? I used to chalk this up solely to the stupidity of the individual driver(s). But, more and more, I try to take into consideration the following: many of these folks are caught in an interstate rush hour commute that makes football game day traffic look like a picnic. At a certain point, the bad habits developed during rush hour spill over. And it seems that once that happens, good driving skills are lost.

And I'll repeat: I'd be happy to support much stronger penalties for driving under the influence if there truly was an alternative to the private car. As it stands (or stumbles) I mostly walk to the tavern(s) of my choice these days, one, because I can, and two, because I know that I'll be in no condition to drive upon leaving.

Yeah, it would take a lot of investment to offer genuine transit alternative to those in the US who have none (basically, everyone except the denizens of the east and west coasts). But it could pay for itself over time in fewer fatalites, less pollution, and less costs to fix roads that fall apart with incredible rapidity (the latter in part due to the much larger volumes of traffic using the roads compared to what said roads were designed for). I'd like to think that, if we hadn't run off into Iraq for what everyone now knows was non-existent reasons, we'd have $160 billion to start.