I was traveling to Baltimore-Washington Airport yesterday to pick up a friend when something with the potential to spoil my holiday cheer occurred: I got stuck in Beltway traffic. A variation on the old Sisyphus curse, with a little Tantalus thrown in for good measure, every mile I creeped forward seemed only to add to the burden of waiting. Each new mile marker indicated I was closer to my goal, but with no end to the horrible trail of tail lights that winded forever on 495, my despair grew, and I wondered if I would ever arrive at the airport, much less on time. Things were so bad at one point I was clawing the ceiling of my car in an effort to restrain myself from jumping out of my car and just running the rest of the way.
I have little patience for traffic that has no physical reason for being. This is Beltway traffic in a nutshell. There doesn’t have to be a reason for someone to put on their brakes–they just do it because it pleases them, like the gods of old. An operative word here would be capricious. Here is a list of the “causes” for the phenomenon known as the Capricious Braker:
1. Flashing lights – It doesn’t matter what colour, size, proximity, or frequency of flashing. Sometimes people mistake the glint of headlights on metal signs or car bumpers for flashing. Helicopters and planes with flashing lights can also set someone off. Flashing lights trigger the Po-Po Alert System, which in turn causes the right leg to distend and apply pressure to the brake pedal instead of the accelerator.
2. Slower drivers – In the world of the interstate, there are fast drivers and there are slow drivers. Slow drivers cause fast drivers to slow down, since fast drivers are in perpetual fear of being caught speeding. Slow drivers trigger the faux logic part of the fast driver brain that says, “That guy must be going slow for a reason” and then an exclamation point pops up and the criminal part of the brain says, “The fuzz!” For this reason, highways and interstates need to have a lane designation, with special ratings that correspond to your particular driving style. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
3. Construction – Any kind of construction, from Highway Maintenance picking up carcasses to engineers laying caissons to surveying to construction of a new Chunnel. People are imminently respectful of the Double Fines for speeding in a construction zone. This produces what is called the Speed Inversion Syndrome, whereby drivers will halve their speed, inversely proportional to the Double Fine, “just to be sure”. Construction often entails flashing lights (see point 1).
4. Actual police or emergency vehicles – One of the more bizarre relationships is the civilian driver-police/emergency relationship. The entire construct is a fragile bond, an agreement that both parties will leave each other alone as long as the former is not driving in a manner that will attract the latter’s attention. However, the problem arises when one evaluates the strength of this bond–it’s hardly a persuasive measure in most cases, and as the ratio of the former to the latter is quite high, most civilians hold little love for “The Man”, and when alone, will usually skirt the boundaries of said agreement. However, this produces high-guilt tension in the civilian, who feels instantly culpable when in the presence of “The Man”, and will overcompensate by reducing speed to sub-molasses velocity.
One set of brake lights illuminating during rush hour can spawn an entire horde of brake-obsessed drivers who freak if they come within fifty yards of the car in front of them. God forbid they not heed the warning lights ahead of them! Defensive driving has ruined the 5pm-8pm time slot.
Fear not, friends. Fringe has devised a lane system that would, at the very least, make mincemeat of my own personal problems with rush hour traffic jams.

This is why I get paid the big bucks.
Anyway, two days to the big day. If you’re traveling at all around this time, please be safe. And don’t, please don’t, use your brakes.