When I leave the house in the morning, my journey begins quite pleasant on most days. I live in a small town with little traffic which is the reason we don’t have any traffic lights. My first 6 miles or so are almost always uneventful. Today, about a mile from my house, I was behind an old Jeep Cherokee in a really ugly pale blue color. Coming to a turn, I guess the car in front of this person didn’t signal when making a right and the person in the jeep was flipping around their hand and gave the person turning the finger. 5th grade stuff we are talking.

I’m going to make a statement here, which some people will and won’t agree. I hate SUV’s (Sport Utility Vehicle). At some point in the late 80’s/early 90’s, the trendy types started to call them SUV’s. They were never SUV’s. They were ORV’s (Off Road Vehicle). Same machine.

(Good luck following my mind here)

This got me thinking of one of our forum members, craps, who has an avatar of Sloth from the movie “The Goonies”. You can’t help think of the opening scene of the movie of the Fratelli’s busting young Francis (prior to him helping capture Richard Kimble or before he lost his head in The Sopranos, of course) out of jail and then leading the cops on a wild goose chase through the streets of Astoria, Oregon. How do they get away? They end up on the beach and Mama Fratelli (may she RIP) pops the transmission in 4×4 and they pull away through a pack of other trucks in some beach race. A bit later in the movie, Chunk discovers their truck in a garage and what does he say? “ORV…bullet holes” He then goes and pleads to the rest of the Goonies that he saw an ORV with bullet holes the size of matzo balls!!

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This morning as I was driving on Easton Ave. headed toward 287 some smartass in his Mitsubishi Mirage decides to be speedracer and dodge in between cars. We passed the light on Franklin Blvd and started going up a hill where there are blind driveways and cars stop often to make a turn. One car stopped to make a turn and he swerved just to see another car slowing down, he tries to be a smart guy and go back to the left lane but lost control of his car, nearly flipped it over, hit another car then went spinning down the hill and hit the side of a school bus. This is why the speed limit is only 40mph and there are warning signs saying that there are cars turning and driveways in that area. He definitely got what he deserved.

Yesterday, while driving home, I’m sitting at a traffic light and some idiot kid in a Jeep slams into me. The good news is everyone, including my 31-week pregnant wife , was ok. It certainly could have been much worse if he was going faster or if someone was in front of us.

The only thing that the guy says to me is, “I tried to stop but couldn’t”. I mean seriously. It wasn’t like a whack-a-mole game where all of a sudden the light appeared out of nowhere with all the traffic in front of him. He had a giant jeep, covered in mud from off-roading and wasn’t paying attention.

The ass of my car is a mangled, twisted pile of metal, rubber, and broken taillights.

I’ll be sure to keep the comments updated with the insurance battles over the next few weeks (I hope not months). Let the fun begin.

Hey at least we got to watch football from the hospital on our anniversary.

Here’s a helpful tip…when you get too old, you shouldn’t be allowed to drive. I was in a turn lane this weekend when the old guy in front of me stopped and very slowly went into the other turn lane without signaling. I almost rear-ended him since I am not a traffic psychic. For a second, I thought I was back in the Bronx, where people in the right lane routinely decide they actually want to turn left and without warning cut across into that lane. Whether it’s senility or stupidity, the cops should be using those traffic cameras to document such actions and take aware more licenses.

WASHINGTON (AP) — More and more commuters are leaving home earlier, traveling farther and driving alone, says an analysis of commuting trends reported Monday.

The “Commuting in America” study by the Transportation Research Board also found that more commuters are traveling from suburb to suburb — rather than the traditional commute from suburb to city.

“As more employers move out of cities to be closer to skilled suburban workers, the suburbs now account for the majority of job destinations,” the report noted.

The board, part of the National Academies, has analyzed commuting trends since 1986, largely using Census data.

According to the latest analysis, the number of new solo drivers grew by almost 13 million from 1990 to 2000. The number of workers with commutes lasting more than 60 minutes grew by almost 50 percent over that period. And, compared with the previous decade, more Americans are leaving for work between 5 a.m. and 6:30 a.m.

More than 4 million people now work from home, and a growing number of those over age 55 are doing so, the report said, a trend that is expected to continue.

why is it that the slowest moving people always drive in the fast lane in morning rush hour traffic??? It seems like I’m always the lucky one to get stuck behind one of them. This morning I was behind some jackass who did no more than 45mph and had about 2 car lengths of space between him and the car in front of him and kept slamming on his brakes. It always seems to be short men in little cars, chinese people, indians, and new yorkers who are the slowest pieces of shit on the road. If you are that afraid of other cars, take the damn backroads or better yet, ride the fucking train!

Moronic Virginia Jaguar drivers should be taken out back and shot! I was on my way to lunch earlier and some moron in a Jag starts to merge right. No signal of course. She was about three inches away from the side of her car scaping the side of mine. You can be sure I gave her a healthy dose on my horn. And one of my fingers.

It was the first day back for the elementary school along the main road out of my neighborhood. While I was braced for the traffic, I’d forgotten the idiocy of some of these parents. Some of them are just popping into the middle of street with their kids, not even looking. And you wonder why the kids have such poor street-crossing skills. I mean, I know as a driver you’re supposed to be careful when it comes to pedestrians and especially school zones. But I think the pedestrians have a little responsibility themselves. Word of advice…look first, before you become a speed bump.

Must be commuter week with all the press. That’s because school starts next week and vacations end. It’s going to get ugly out there.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — It might be hard for some drivers to believe, but average commuting times are getting shorter for U.S. workers.

The average daily commute to work has shrunk from 25.5 minutes in 2000 to 25.1 minutes last year, according to data released this week by the Census Bureau.

“We all should hold a celebration,” said Alan Pisarski, author of “Commuting in America.” “We’re saving 0.4 minutes!”

That’s 0.4 minutes each way, for a total of 48 seconds a day.

But not everyone’s buying it.

“Even with these numbers, we swear up and down that we are spending more time in our cars,” said John B. Townsend II, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic in Washington.

“We are spending at least an hour a day in our cars in the Washington area,” Townsend said. “We spend more time stuck in traffic and commuting (each year) than we spend on vacation.”

The numbers are surprising because many of the nation’s fastest-growing communities are in the outer suburbs, miles from central cities. The shorter commuting times could be a sign that jobs are following the workers, Pisarski said.

For example, the nation’s longest commute, at 39.6 minutes, is in the Vineland, New Jersey, metropolitan area, about 40 miles south of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Vineland, a community of 56,000 people in southern New Jersey, was part of the Philadelphia metropolitan area in 2000. It became its own metropolitan area, along with the New Jersey cities of Millville and Bridgeton, because fewer workers are commuting into Philadelphia.

The New York area had the second-longest commute, at 34.2 minutes, and the Washington area was third at 33.4 minutes. Commuters in both New York and Washington saw their commutes get slightly longer from 2000 to 2005.

The Los Angeles, California, area, which is notorious for its traffic, came in 16th, at 28.4 minutes. That’s shorter than the commute in Riverside, California, which has been siphoning residents from Los Angeles for years.

“Overall, congestion isn’t a problem for everyone,” said Mantill Williams, a spokesman for AAA’s national office. “But there are specific pockets of pain. There are specific areas where it has gotten worse.”

Among the findings from the Census Bureau:

?The share of people driving alone to work increased from 75.7 percent in 2000 to 77 percent last year.

?The share of people carpooling to work dropped from 12.2 percent in 2000 to 10.7 percent last year.

?The share of people using mass transit stayed the same at 4.7 percent.

?The share of people walking to work dropped from 2.9 percent in 2000 to 2.5 percent last year.

?The share of people working at home increased from 3.3 percent in 2000 to 3.6 percent last year.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

From NJ.com -

Getting sick of long rides on the train

Study: Commuting stress may worsen health woes

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

BY JUDY PEET

Star-Ledger Staff

For years, the prevailing New Jersey commuter philosophy has been: When the driving gets tough, the tough get a railpass.

But commuting by train is also stressful, according to a new study that found the longer the rail commute, the higher the strain. With every passing mile, there is an impact not only on physical and psychological well-being, but also on the ability to complete simple tasks, the study concluded.

“We’ve known for a long time that there is a correlation between stress of driving in congested commuter traffic and heart” attacks, said Richard Wener, a professor of environmental psychology at Polytechnic University and one of the study’s authors.

“With this study, we are suggesting that the stress of long train commutes may pose a similar health problem,” added Wener, who commutes by train every day from his Maplewood home to his classes in Brooklyn. “Trains are not as stressful as cars at rush hour, but even a relatively minor stressor, several hours a day, every day of the year, can build to a health risk.”

New Jersey commuters were studied because rail commuting here is “worse than in most places,” Wener said. The expansion of suburbia here also means the average rail commute is getting longer and longer.

Sitting on the train last night, returning from a hard day in Manhattan, few commuters were surprised at the study results.

“Of course the ride is stressful; everybody is pretty much in a daze after they get off the train,” said accounting firm manager Mike D’Angelo, whose commute between Denville and Manhattan takes about 70 minutes. “If I could afford to move closer, like to Summit, of course I would.”

Food buyer Joseph Cammarta, who commutes to New York from Dover, complained that the seats are too tight and passengers are jammed between bags, but added that the real bother “is cell phones. That’s where the stress comes in.”

The researchers studied 208 commuters taking trains from New Jersey to Manhattan on the Midtown Direct line. The subjects, who ranged in age from 25 to 60, commuted at least three days a week and had been on the same route for at least 12 months.

The trips ranged from 59 minutes, door-to-door, to 104 minutes.

The participants were about evenly split between men and women, but of similar education and socio-economic backgrounds. Eighty percent were college graduates, and the median income approached $100,000.

Wener and Gary Evans, a professor of environmental analysis at Cornell University, used several methods to evaluate stress levels.

The commuters’ saliva was tested for the stress hormone cortisol at the end of the commute, and, for comparison, during a weekend at home. The commuters and their spouses also filled out questionnaires rating their stress levels, and the riders were asked to proofread a simple office memo at the end of a long commute.

The study found that average cortisol levels rose in direct proportion to the length of time on the train. People who had a 100-minute commute had, on average, more than three times the cortisol levels of people who had only a 60-minute commute.

The ability to pick up errors proofreading declined in a similar pattern, the researchers found. Self-reporting responses supported the increased frustration and irritability of the long commute.

“Ethnicity, profession and gender didn’t seem to matter, although mothers with children at home had the highest stress levels,” Wener said, adding that the study sponsored by NJ Transit did not take into account factors such as train conditions, seat locations or train changes.

Wener said the potential impact on work productivity following a long commute “should be of concern to employers and infrastructure planners.”

New Jerseyans are tough, however, and a number of passengers polled by The Star-Ledger simply shrugged and agreed with Larry Sobol, a financial adviser from Morristown, who said: “Deal with it.”

That does not mean they don’t have suggestions. The overwhelming favorite was to take out the middle seat. People would rather stand than sit there.

Other rider suggestions included more cars, more space, electric hookups and wireless Internet connections on the cars, better lighting, club cars and better notification of train delays at the stations.

NJ Transit spokesman Dan Stessel said the agency is making several improvements that passengers have requested.

He noted 234 new cars are expected to go on line beginning later this year, with better amenities, better lighting and, best of all, no third seat.

Critics noted, however, there will not be enough new, amenity-filled trains, and most riders will still be forced to use the old, crowded cars. They said the pace of improvement is too slow and it will be up to commuters to manage their stress.

Staff writer Rohina Phadnis contributed to this report.

? 2006 The Star Ledger

? 2006 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.