waldina.com

If you were stuck at Exit 7 this morning, I feel your pain. Coming down the Northway (one of my favorite '518' expressions) you knew you were going to be late for work when the usual stop-and-go before the Twins at Exit 8 was more STOP than go. With a sea of red tailights in front of us we knew there was no way we would be pulling into our parking spot at work on time to start the work week.

I knew there must be a bad accident past the Twin Bridges that was causing the hold up. Hearing the traffic report on the radio confirmed that guess, "a multi-car accident at Exit 7 has traffic at a crawl on the Northway this morning..." - it was at that moment that I had a decision to make: get over into the left lane to take Exit 5, drive by the airport, then loop around to Route 7 to get to Latham OR, stay the course and get to see the cause of this accident.

I chose to stay the course.

Here's what I witnessed as I slowly inched my way to the accident scene: Upstate Drivers who sped past the line of cars stuck on the Exit 7 turning lane that tried to speed up the head of the line and cut over with Northway traffic behind them. One guy in a pick up truck actually brought the right lane on the Northway to a temporary standstill because he wanted to cut the line.

Why do people do this? This reminds me of the kid in grade school who would try to cut the lunch line because his buddies were "saving" him a place up front. Sorry, doesn't work in the REAL WORLD! And I love the look on the cutters faces when they glare at US for not letting THEM over. Really? REALLY?!? I must have missed that day in driving class when the instructor said, "it's okay to stop traffic on an interstate a rush hour to cut a line of people trying to pass an accident scene."

Oh, bonus points if you also have a "Student of the Week" or family pictogram on the rear window of your car.