Freeways of Tolerance

The City of San Ramon sits on Highway 680 between the Cities of Walnut Creek and Pleasanton, along the commute between the Central Valley and Silicon Valley, with workday traffic somewhere between bearable and infuriating.  I drove from Fresno to San Ramon and back on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, what arguably could be one of the busiest travel days of the year.   No, I’m not a glutton for punishment but rather a desperate job-seeker who had been granted an interview for that day only, and like the fisherman who gets strong nibble at a hole that he thought had long ago been fished out, I needed to keep my line in the water.

I hate driving on freeways.  I’m using the work “hate” here on purpose and specifically.  I really, really don’t like it.  I’m not a great driver.  Probably not even a good driver.  I get distracted, I get stressed, and I am quick to judge my fellow motorists, especially when they merge.  (Here’s a tip: the on ramp is designed so that a merger can get up to freeway speeds before he/she needs to commit to said merging.  Please do so.  Oh, and freeway traffic has the right of way.)

Weird things happen on freeways.  I once saw a convertible in North Bakersfield zip from the far left lane to the right shoulder, while the driver relentlessly beat something unseen in the back seat with the steering wheel locking device The Club.  I once saw a semi coming down the north side of the Grapevine with two wheels fully engulfed in flames, and a guy hanging out the passenger side door with a fire extinguisher waiting for it to slow down enough to jump.  And back in the early eighties when I drove LA freeways a lot, I saw this.

So here I was, driving the majority of a 165 mile, each way, journey on those hated freeways.  Fully expecting to be miserable for somewhere between three and much-greater-than-three hours. 

But that didn’t happen.

I started early, real early.  My appointment was at 10:00 but I left home at 5:30, well on the side of caution.  I arrived at 8:50.  Was there traffic?  Yes, there was traffic.  As I motored up I-5, there were so many RVs lined up at the rest stops they looked like dealerships.  Semi-trucks moved along in long convoys so close to one another that they might as well have had their bumpers tied together.  There were work trucks with and without trailers, SUVs with extra cargo pods strapped to the roof, and sedans with heavy and drooping trunks.  There was traffic and lots of it.

But I was among professionals.  Professionals seasoned by years of weathering Altamont Pass williwaws, Livermore construction, and accidents and breakdowns that pop up more often than Starbucks franchises.  Simple put; we moved along.  Sometimes we zipped down like leaves on a breeze, other times we clogged up like cigarette butts at a storm drain waiting our turn through the chute, but simply put, we kept on truckin’.

So a quick thank you to the drivers of the East Bay commutes.  I wouldn’t want to do it daily, but if that ever become necessary, I may abandon hate and replace it with… tolerable.