Ever since the school year ended I’ve been driving my daughter to summer camp every day through the dreaded Tysons Corner corridor. It’s one of the worst commutes in Northern Virginia: eastbound on Route 7 through the Tysons Corner business district and on to Falls Church in the morning rush hour, then twenty minutes in the kiss-ride line, then westbound back home, and then repeating this cycle again in the afternoon.
This area has the worst commuter mix: office workers rushing to and from work, delivery trucks passing through from Maryland and DC, and during the school year, high-schoolers learning to drive. All dealing with the heavy traffic, beltway crossing and stoplights galore. There’s no alternative route. I’m stuck with this commute for the next three weeks. Ugh.
I’ve spent a good chunk of my life sitting in traffic. First as a worker bee commuting to and from work and later as a full-time mom shuttling my daughter to myriad after school activities. When traffic is near or at a standstill I amuse myself by calculating the traffic flow rate based on speed, traffic volume, traffic light timing and number of cars merging into the maelstrom from cross roads and on-ramps. It’s the systems engineer and the mathematician in me. Always doing time studies in my head. Always thinking about optimization.
Stuck
Last week my daughter and I were traveling through Tysons Corner during rush hour on the way home from camp. The afternoon was so hot that we decided to pull off to get a drink from the fast food drive-through. Big mistake. The burger joint was located off an access road running parallel to Route 7 and there was no cross road with a traffic light to get back onto the main road.
Happy with a strawberry milkshake for little K and ice tea for me, I attempted to turn right from the access road back on to the Route 7. No dice. Traffic was bumper to bumper, crawling along at a snail’s pace, moving a few feet every ten seconds or so. I rolled down my window and stuck my head out.
No one seemed to notice my turn signal or my impassioned look, pleading, “Pretty please will you let me merge into this mess?” Most drivers looked straight ahead and avoided eye contact. A few just stared back at me as if to say, “What, why should I let you in ahead of me and make me that much later getting home?”
We sat idling for a few minutes before I had had enough. In the small southern town where I grew up there was little traffic and even during the busiest time of day folks would smile and happily wave you in. When I left for college in Atlanta in the early eighties, people drove like Mario Andretti through the downtown connector and no one seemed to get a speeding ticket. The ebb and flow of traffic was courteous even in the heat of rush hour. You could always count on somebody letting you merge into traffic.
Then I moved to Northern California during the internet boom and the shock of commuting there was just as bad as the culture shock of a small town southern girl moving to the West Coast. I remember being stuck for what seemed like an eternity in the Safeway parking lot down the street from where I worked in Silicon Valley. No one would let me merge into traffic. No one. They all avoided eye contact and didn’t acknowledge my turn signal in any manner. In fact, they looked away as if I was a leper or something. It took me forever before I mustered up the courage to cut someone off and merge into traffic. I never went to that store again after work.
Now here I am, fifteen years later, stuck again. I surveyed the line of cars parading by me. A slick haired machismo in a black Ferrari: too risky. A dashing silver fox in a dark suit and tie in a silver BMW X5: too much testosterone. A beat up unmarked white van: probably uninsured. A green jeep full of teenagers: too inexperienced. A real estate agent-like helmet-haired lady in a red Audi convertible yapping on her cellphone: too distracted. A twenty-something blue shirted, open-collared cubicle rat in a late-model navy Acura TLX: the perfect candidate.
“Hold on to your seat, baby,” I said to little K.
“What are you doing, mom? Nooooo!”
Yes. Yes I did. I gunned my SUV and cut off the unsuspecting cubicle rat in the navy Acura TLX. Didn’t even look at him first. He slammed his brakes and blared his horn at me. He glared in fury at me. I turned to face him and smiled.
“Thank you soooo much!” I yelled and waved. He stared back at me, speechless.
Cruel to be Kind
We slowly inched along. Stop. Go. Stop. Go. According to my calculations, less than five miles per hour.
Ahead of me, I spied a middle-aged man in a black Mercedes sedan sitting idly on a side road with his turn signal blinking. Without hesitation I stopped my car, waved at him and signaled for him to merge in front of me. He stared back in disbelief and didn’t budge. I waved at him again. No, no, this is not a trick. I’m really letting you in. He hesitated for a few more seconds before cautiously turning in front of me.
We continued to crawl along. Stop. Go. Stop. Go. In the rear view mirror I could see the cubicle rat in the navy Acura TLX still behind me. He looked really put out.
At the next juncture there was a baseball mom in a burgundy Suburban full of kids waiting to merge. Professional courtesy: I stopped and waved her in too. She smiled and pulled in front of me without hesitation.
Then I heard a loud honk and looked back. The cubicle rat in the navy Acura TLX shot me a bird. Nice guy.
Thereafter at every juncture I stopped to let people merge in. Sometimes a single car. Sometimes two or three at a time. What does it matter? We weren’t moving much anyway. According to my calculations, at the rate we were traveling, letting each car merge in would only add about five seconds per car to my commute. No big deal.
After watching me allow six more cars to merge ahead of us, the cubicle rat in the navy Acura TLX behind me had had about enough of my benevolence. At the next opening he quickly cut left to the middle lane and inched past as I fell further behind the merging cars. He sneered at us as he passed, driving, per my calculations, maybe eight miles per hour tops. I nodded at him and smiled.
“Catch you at the next light!”
He stared back, speechless.
What Goes Around
We snaked westbound along Route 7 for about a minute more before traffic eased up. I continued to let every single car I meet at a juncture merge ahead of me. Probably ten cars total. At worst that amounts to less than one extra minute of commute time. No big deal.
As we approached the right hand exit for the Dulles Toll Road, traffic began to slow once again. Now cars from the middle and far left lanes jockeyed to move right to exit onto the freeway. Up ahead I could see the cubicle rat in the navy Acura TLX sitting in the middle lane with his signals blinking, trying to move back to the right lane to exit.
Amazingly, none of the ten cars that I had let in ahead of me would let the poor cubicle rat in the navy Acura TLX merge back into the right lane. So much for Kindness. Pass it on.
A moment later I reached the exit ramp. The cubicle rat in the navy Acura TLX was still stopped in the middle lane trying to merge right and a long line of irate drivers had formed behind him.
Without hesitation I waved to let him merge in.
“Mom, what are you doing? That’s the guy you cut off.”
“I’m letting him merge in. See his blinker? He wants to exit.”
The cubicle rat in the navy Acura TLX glared at me, expressionless. Then he abruptly cut in front of my SUV and zoomed down the exit ramp, disappearing onto the freeway below.
As he sped by I waved at him and smiled. “You’re welcome. A**hole.”
“Ohhh mom. Potty mouth!”
“Sorry, babe. Just slipped out.”
I giggled. Kindness never felt so good.
