November 17, 2003

• Traffic Reports

  
  

   

  
  

  San Diego has sensors built into the major freeways that read the speed of passing vehicles. This information is displayed on several Web sites, particularly one maintained by CalTrans, and reports traffic hazards and accidents as well as giving a real-time look at the speeds traffic is really moving at. The indicators are displayed as color-coded dots that display average speed when the cursor is passed over them. A series of aqua or green dots means all is well. Yellow indicates traffic is moving slowly and red means it is almost stopped.

  
  

  Accidents and hazards are shown as diamonds. Clicking on a diamond takes you to a page with the report. Yellow diamonds represent hazards, orange diamonds represent minor accidents and red diamonds are for big, serious accidents.

  
  

  Right now the map shows one yellow diamond. It should have some kind of enhancement for stupidity because somebody is changing a flat tire with their legs sticking out into the traffic lane. I expect that one to turn red at any moment.

  
  

  I saw a yellow diamond escallate to red last night. Some logs rolled off of a truck going up a freeway approach, which generated the yellow hazard. Car after car ran over the logs until a total of seven cars were wiped out and they had to call in ambulances, fire and tow trucks.

  
  

  Saturday nights the diamonds seem to appear like corn popping, most of them associated with drunken driving. Quite often only one vehicle is involved. In one of these cases, the female passenger got out of the vehicle just before it was hit by a large pickup truck. The truck drove off; the young man in the car was trapped inside as it went down the side of an embankment.

  
  

  I begin to understand why people would buy police scanners and spend hours listening to them. The panorama of human stupidity portrayed in these reports is as endless in its variety as it is staggering in its volume. I didn't know all of that was happening. I just wanted to know if it was safe to drive home.

  
  

  I see lots of stupidity while driving. It usually does no harm. No paint is mixed, no metal is bent, no blood is spilled. I've seen plenty of close calls, near hits that I was sure would connect but didn't.

  
  

  Now I know they're not all so lucky.

  
  

   

  • 01:43
  • 1 Comment