driving with only
half a brain need to save the
other half for work

Due to road construction and the tourons*, my last couple of commutes have been a little rough.

The bridge to the island where my office is was built in 1984 and while there have been no improvements to the bridge, the number of cars using the bridge has doubled.

They are putting more sand in the hourglass but not making the neck that connects the two halves of the hour glass any bigger so travel time gets higher and higher.

Seems like someone could realize that if you double the amount of sand in an hour glass, you would need to double the width of the neck to make sure it was still an hour glass.

I think it was Bill Bryson who said traffic engineers cannot fix traffic but they can spread the problem out over a larger area.

But I digress.

The problem for me is that I am getting so agitated with other drivers.

I get so agitated that it takes a lot of time getting my mind back in line to work.

I thought about how I used to commute.

I thought about how I used to commute when I worked in Atlanta and started writing these haiku.

In many ways my old ATL commute was much much worse.

The saying was what would you get if you took the cars in the world and put them end to end?

The answer was ATLANTA!

Atlanta traffic was always doing its best to kill me.

Low Country traffic just was to annoy me as much as humanly possible.

Over those ATL years, I was able to develop a commuting mind set where I used my half my brain, so to speak, to drive to work, and saved or reserved or protected the other half of my brain so that I could work once I got to work.

If I did it before, I can do it again.

I got up this morning a little earlier planning to get a head start on my drive.

I thought about my drive and the music I would listen to and the views I would enjoy driving towards the sun rising out from the Atlantic Ocean.

I made a big travel cup of coffee.

It was magical.

Did I worry when I had to go through that first traffic circle with a bunch of South Carolinians who understand neither the concept of yielding or know their right hand from their left?

No I did not and I successfully navigated that first road hazard on the my commute.

My mood was threatened when the feller in front of me who had successfully fended off my efforts to pass him stopped for a yellow light.

I just went with the flow.

Did I worry when I entered the merge lanes for the Bluffton Flyover where half the cars are trucks pulling trailers of tools twice as long as the truck that make blind side merging such an adventure?

Same for the merge of the Bluffton Flyover with 278 where you meet up with all the auslanders who slow down when they see the water of Mackay Creek and they point fingers at the water and yell, SEE THE WATER and slow down to see the water.

No I did not and I successfully navigated that second and third road hazards on the my commute.

It didn’t bother me when there was the usual fender bender on Pinckney Island where you finish the first bridge (the one not yet condemned but not deemed safe to use) and start the second bridge.

I used the slow down to have a big sip of coffee.

The taste of hot coffee in a well worn plastic travel cup took me back, BOY HOWDY.

On to the island and through the first 2 traffic lights and then over the Cross Island Parkway and the next 2 traffic lights and bang, zoom, I was at work.

Stoplights in the low country are always an adventure as, for some reason, South Carolinians are always surprised that the colors change and that the change in color requires a reaction beyond saying, GOSH THAT COLOR JUST CHANGED, LETS WATCH AND SEE IF IT CHANGES AGAIN.

But I made it.

I got out of the car and grabbed my backpack and walked up to the doors with a light heart.

I used my entrance code, which I take as a sign that I still have a job and entered the building.

I walked into the office and greeted my coworkers with a smile.

I made my commute and saved half my brain for work.

I wasn’t agitated or angry or spouting off at the mouth with all the things I wanted to yell at drivers that I didn’t yell because I knew they couldn’t hear me. (Okay I DO YELL even though I know they can’t hear me – you can ask my wife)

Nope.

I was fresh and happy and ready for work.

I started my day with a focus on the drive and left half my mind for the job.

Yessir.

I zipped open my backpack and saw that I had forgot to pack my laptop.

*Tourons (according to Wikipedia) Touron is a derogatory term combining the words “Tourist” with “Moron” to describe any person who, while on vacation, commits an act of pure stupidity. The term is considered park ranger slang that describes how some tourists act when entering a national park. The phrase indicates an act of ignorance and is known to be used in different subcultures. It is also used to describe tourists in general when they are outside their normal “comfort zone”.

Tourists acting as Tourons can drive erratically. A common occurrence is to see vehicles stopped in the middle of the road at the first sighting of deer. Drivers and occupants leave the vehicle to take pictures, backing traffic up for miles. The term is used as humor to defend against the usual aggravation of continued exposure to tourists by even local residents of tourist areas.

morning drive across
salt marsh tidal flats under
live oaks spanish moss

Not so long ago, my morning drive was into downtown Atlanta, a commute rated in the top ten worst in America.

Today I reminded myself of that drive as I made my way to work on a island on the Atlantic Coast.

Atlanta.

Atlantic.

Atlanta was paved over roadways as far as the eye could see.

The road to Island is carved out of marsh grass and laid over swamp and tidal flats and over the inner coastal waterway.

The road to Atlanta went under other roads and light poles for lights that often didn’t work either because the city hadn’t paid the bill or someone had stolen the copper wire that connected the lights.

The road to the Island runs under live oaks and spanish moss.

It is a different drive.

In December, the sun, just minutes before having risen out of the ocean, shines into the eyes of anyone making the drive.

The going is slow and the road is full of cars but the amount cars, if you counted all of them, would total somewhere around 1% of the total number of cars that were on the roads in Atlanta.

With the magic that can be technology I can drive along with music playing in the car to match the mood.

There is something about driving along over a salt marsh and tidal flats and over water and under live oaks and spanish moss while listening to Appalachian Spring.

I don’t care if it is December.

that moment shows that
the car can only know what
it is trained to know

Adapted from the article, What Riding in a Self-Driving Tesla Tells Us About the Future of Autonomy, by Cade Metz, Ben Laffin, Hang Do Thi Duc and Ian Clontz (NY Times,  Nov. 14, 2022).

Cade and Ian spent six hours riding in a self-driving car in Jacksonville, Fla., to report this story.

They write:

Tesla’s technology can work remarkably well. It changes lanes on its own, recognizes green lights, and is able to make ordinary turns against oncoming traffic.

But every so often, it makes a mistake, forcing testers like Chuck to intervene.

“That moment shows that the car can only know what it is trained to know,” Mr. Cook said of the sudden turn into the parking lot. “The world is a big place, and there are many corner cases that Tesla may not have trained it for.”

Experts say no system could possibly have the sophistication needed to handle every possible scenario on any road. This would require technology that mimics human reasoning — technology that we humans do not yet know how to build.

Such technology, called artificial general intelligence, “is still very, very far away,” said Andrew Clare, chief technology officer of the self-driving vehicle company Nuro. “It is not something you or I or our kids should be banking on to help them get around in cars.”

I like a lot of these sentences.

It is not something you or I or our kids should be banking on to help them get around in cars, was one.

And the line, the car can only know what it is trained to know, makes me think this article applies to a lot more than cars.

began trying to
nourish outrage as a screen
for apprehension

It might be called road rage.

I talk to other drivers while I drive.

I know they can’t hear but that doesn’t stop.

Think Stupid, I say as I watch other cars at intersections.

I do not suffer fools gladly.

I feel if someone is going to share my road, they share in the responsibility to preserve my life,

I wish other drivers took that responsibility a tiny teeny bit more seriously.

So I remind them.

I talk to them.

I talk then yell.

Thin Stupid, Come on!

I also expect that if someone is going to share my road, the can share in the responsibility to keep traffic moving.

And they can help themselves out a lot if only they studied up just a little before leaving on where they were going.

I talk to them.

I yell at them.

Soon I am screaming at them.

Full of outrage.

Only recently am I understanding that my outrage is a just a screen.

A screen of my own apprehension.

My apprehension over not taking my role in preserving the lives of other drivers seriously.

My apprehension over where I am going.

My apprehension that other drivers are talking to me.

My apprehension that other drivers are yelling at me.

My apprehension that other drivers at outraged.

A hero is someone who backs their car out of the driveaway know all this, and drives a car to work anyway.

*Adapted from the line, “He forced his attention away on to Welch’s habits as a car-driver, and began trying to nourish outrage as a screen for the apprehension, tapping his long brown shoe loudly on the floor and whistling It worked for five seconds or less.” from Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, London, 1956