Tag Highways

On the Road – 2016 Style

Michael Leave a comment

I just got back form a little road trip. It’s been a while since I’ve been on the road for so long or so far. Things have changed – and some haven’t.

In general people still haven’t figured out the fine art of driving. Speed limits are optional, turn signals must be broken, brakes apparently don’t work nearly as well as horns, and lanes are merely a suggestion of vehicular placement. I recall when everybody went to driver’s ed in high school. Now nobody goes. And it shows! But no school will pay the cost of a car, a teacher’s extra time (for some reason it was always a gym teacher), and the outrageous insurance it must cost when the only authorized drivers are unlicensed teenagers and a gym teacher.

Rest stops have gotten dirtier, with less real food and more unreal people. And they are farther apart. When many highways were being built in the 1950s the cars were big but of suspect power. In the east and the west where mountains rule the terrain, all roads had stops at the peaks. This allowed the motoring public a chance to stretch their legs, enjoy the views, and allow their cars to cool down after doing their imitations of an asthmatic billy goat. And there the rest stops stayed. The ones that weren’t torn down.  Today’s cars are much more powerful and can easily make it up three or four thousand feet. And much too easily they then make it back down the other side. I feel sorry for the people who live in the flat middle of the country and don’t get to enjoy the experience of plummeting down a mountain around bends often only feet from all too real sheer drops, bending, twisting, turning, ducking into tunnels then back into the sunlight only to plunge into the new darkness of a companion tunnel then thrust back out for another few miles of downhill slaloming all at a speed for which breakneck is too mild an adjective. We don’t need rest stops at the top of the mountains; we need them at the bottom. With liquor licenses. And underwear changing stations.

Gas stations are being augmented by charging stations for electric cars. A great idea. I saw a half-dozen charging stations at each stop I visited.  Even at the smallest of the stops where I stopped there stood the usual six charging stands. For the entire four days on the road I encountered one electric car. Perhaps someday there will be lines for them also.

A new nicety at rest stops is the farmers’ market. I love farmers’ markets and have posted a few thoughts on them. But I don’t understand why they are there. Except for the few RVers still on the road, how many people pick up a peck of fresh veggies for dinner while on vacation?

In the 1970s everybody reduced the speed limit to 55mph to save gas since prices had skyrocketed to a whopping 59 cents per gallon. Even though gas today is cheap at $2.50 a gallon, speed limits keep getting higher. Except for whoever is driving in the left lane. For some reason as soon as I pull out to pass a slower vehicle the car that just sped past me discovers that his brakes indeed brake.

And perhaps someday somebody will be able to explain why there are handicap lanes at the toll plazas. I didn’t use them. But there they were, and that might be this week’s newest, greatest mystery.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Cleanliness is next to the side of the road

Michael Leave a comment

The story goes that back in the Sixties, Lady Bird Johnson needed a “First Lady Project.”  Back then the First Ladies didn’t plan on making a run for their own presidency their project.  They concentrated on more homey topics.  One of Mrs. Johnson’s was litter.  Actually, it was anti-litter, particularly along our highways.  The Highway Beautification Act of 1965 was the result of her campaign to make the American roadsides more beautiful places.   The Act mostly addressed billboards and roadside businesses, but there was a third part that concerned itself with cleaning up those roads.

Keep America Beautiful isn’t just a slogan, it’s a non-profit organization founded in 1953 with exactly that goal in mind.  For sixty years and now through 563 affiliates, KAB promotes keeping it clean.  Between Mrs. Johnson, Keep America Beautiful, and the hundreds of thousands of volunteers who spend every weekend somewhere picking up roadside trash, you’d think the US highway system would be clean enough to eat off.  We’re here to tell you it isn’t.

Now that spring is here and the mounds of snow aren’t lining the highways, mounds of plastic bags, sandwich containers, bottles, cans, pieces of furniture, whole furniture, mattresses, old clothes, cardboard boxes, dead animals, and car parts line the highways.  That’s not a theoretical list, that’s what we have actually seen, with our own eyes, just over the past few days.  We wonder how some of the stuff gets there.  He of We was driving along an Interstate highway when he had to do a double-take to make sure that was a set of 4 chairs along the median.  She of We pointed out a front bumper of what appeared to be a late model car.  Now we have to ask, if there was an accident and it pulled away your bumper, shouldn’t someone take it along with the dead car when it gets towed away?

So enough of this littering.  First of all, we want everyone to stand up, raise his or her right hand, and swear (or affirm) that nobody will ever throw anything out of a moving or un-moving vehicle.  If you finish your Big Mac you will wait until you get home to throw away the bag.  If you are hiding unauthorized eating from your spouse or partner, stop at a gas station before you get home and throw the evidence away in one of their cans.

Now that we can prevent a little, let’s clean up a lot.  We want everyone to pick up the trash that is in front of your house.  It’s there.  It might only be an egg carton that fell out of the trash can when the garbage detail was out last week, or a few cigarette butts that somebody tossed out a window since cars don’t have ashtrays any more.  Pull on a pair of gloves and clean up your space.  “I didn’t do it” is not an excuse.

And finally, if you should have an accident, and believe us when we say we hope there are never any more accidents, but if you should have one, please clean up your car parts.

Now, let’s get out there and do some Spring Cleaning for everyone in the world to enjoy.  Or next week we’ll tell you about Lady Bird’s other projects with the Head Start Program.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?