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 Each
morning I leave for work no later than 6:30 AM, for the simple reason that
I don’t want to spend the first fifteen minutes of my trip trapped behind
school buses. I wouldn’t normally complain about a few minutes lost waiting
as the buses stopped to pickup their passengers, if that procedure operated
like it did when our son rode the bus. Back in those days (ancient history
now – but really only twenty-five years ago) school kids congregated at
a central pickup point, which for some necessitated a bit of a walk (sometimes
in unpleasant weather). The bus would make one stop and pickup maybe fifteen
kids.
These days’ walking apparently is a lost skill, and the productivity benefits of a central pickup point not well understood. I traverse Ipswich Road in Boxford each morning and if I’m off my schedule I come upon a bus that stops several times, moving perhaps a grand total of fifty to seventy feet between stops. There are parents waiting with the children at each of those stops that are easily within sight of each other. I don’t understand why one group of children couldn’t make the effort to walk the short distance separately the groups, and thus eliminate a stop (and the energy and time wasting stops and starts in the process). I’d think bus drivers would lobby for the elimination of stops, but apparently they don’t. I know parents are concerned for the safety of their children, but that doesn’t seem to be an issue with the short distances I’m mentioning. Surely with a little effort parents could organize to insure safety, perhaps alternating the responsibility so that as a group they all spent less time parked at the bus stopping points each morning and afternoon. Since that’s not likely to happen, I’ll continue my morning regime on the school bus dictated schedule. While I’m complaining I might as well shift to my second on going frustration. We’re all subject to traffic citations for exceeding the speed limit. But why is it that drivers traveling well below the speed limit aren’t subject to some type of regulatory enforcement. On Route 128 southbound out of Gloucester I regularly encounter drivers traveling at speeds well under 55 mph. And as a consequence traffic is bottled up behind them, which at rush hour always translates shortly into backed up traffic and further delays for drivers further behind. These slow drivers slow down even more when they encounter slight rises in the roadway, apparently not noticing the further fall off in their speed as they proceed up hill. I’ve never noticed any type of enforcement action being taken for drivers inhibiting the flow of traffic, even when they are camped out in the left hand lane. I’ve witnessed officers tailgating these drivers (who of course aren’t looking in their rear view mirrors either), practically pushing them out of the way to get by, but not taking any action to issue a citation. I’m sure there must be some rule on the book that could be used to address these rolling roadblocks, but apparently officers are much less concerned about the problems these drivers create. Or maybe they know that when the frustrated drivers following these roadblocks finally get by, they’ll pick up their pace too much and will fall into a speeding trap down the road. A few weeks ago I apparently hit one pot hole to many and flattened a tire on my Audi. Fortunately I’d made it to work before the tire went flat. Of course the weather was marginal when this happened, so the challenge was to mount the spare tire without becoming covered in dirt and grease. I’ve changed enough tires on our race cars, so I wasn’t particularly bummed about the problem. That is until I had to deal with the wheel studs in dwindling day light. Cars used to come with wheel studs that stayed put when you removed the lug nuts, but now when you need to change a tire on Audis and Porsches (and probably other cars?) you remove the entire wheel stud not just the lug nut. When mounting the replacement tire, you need to hold the tire in place with one hand (and a foot!), while you try to rotate the tire so that the wheel openings line up with the threaded holes for the wheel studs. Then you somehow have to hold the wheel in place while you thread the wheel stud by hand because you can’t possibly also hold the tire wrench and keep everything in place and aligned. I don’t have a clue for why this design change was made, and I surely don’t think the “inventor” spent time changing tires in marginal weather by him or herself. Whoever was responsible deserves a “special place in hell” for their efforts at making things less user friendly. I was comforted in this particular instance by the fact that somehow I managed the entire tire change successfully in less than 30 minutes, without messing up my clothes. I caught a little bit of the action at this year’s Barrett Jackson Auction on Speed TV last night. While I was watching an AmphiCar went up for auction. You’ve probably seen one of these little vehicles that can operate on dry land and in the water. They are powered by a motorcycle engine and seat two people in a very simplistic interior. Much to my amazement when the auction for that car started the bids poured in; a veritable feeding frenzy ensued with a number of interested bidders seeking the car. Ultimately the winning bid was $115,000 making it the top seller at that point in the evening, besting highly prized big block Corvettes. I was stunned that this freak of a vehicle could attract so much interest. I doubt the winner bought the vehicle to use it puttering around on the water, and it sure isn’t much of a daily driver. This must be what ones does with their “excess” cash, when they’ve purchased everything there is to own. I’ll watch the rest of the auction this week, and I’m sure there will be some outrageous amounts paid for muscle cars and hot rods, but this sale of the AmphiCar will be the most ludicrous. |
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