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being traffic

I don't love leaving the house in the car, but occasionally I have to—like this afternoon, when I ventured out to Costco to get more flour. There were moments on the trip, both there and back, when I felt like the whole idea of automotive transportation might be a mistake. Like on the way home when I contributed to filling the highway and causing a traffic jam. Traffic is back in Massachusetts the last couple weeks; I guess people are all vaccinated or trust the folks around them are. What's strange is that the stores don't seem to be any more full... I wonder where everyone is going? I did have a thought that maybe the volume of cars wasn't really what it was during rush hour pre-pandemic, but people just have forgotten how to drive on full roads; that came to mind when we returned to highway speed after five miles of traffic without any reason for the slowdown to be seen.

And I did see some specific moments of concerning behavior. On the highway on the way to the store I was in the right lane, as I tend to be, and there was a driver in the next lane over who was so slow one moment that I found myself passing on the right, and then zipped past me the next moment. When this happened a second time I looked over and saw them texting—or anyways doing something very absorbing on their phone. Yikes! Then a couple minutes later I stopped at a red light and was startled to hear screeching brakes as the driver following barely stopped in time to avoid rear-ending me. Maybe they expected me to run the light? All in all, it wasn't super fun, and I'm glad I don't have to leave our little local roads for another week or so!

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