Isaac Sinnett

The Race Lost by the Car

Bumper to bumper traffic on a Friday evening while driving on Sheridan has become something that I have grown use to.  Tonight was the exception though, it was worse.  Much, much worse.  If anyone recalls the opening of the movie Office Space where the lead character is sitting in traffic and the old person with a walker passes them, well, that was me today.  Seriously, there was a four block stretch where a couple was walking and I was driving.  They won!  They actually beat me in a race of four blocks!  You have to be kidding! Someone could walk four blocks faster than I could drive them.  That is just crazy insane.

Sheridan is one of those streets in Chicago that is a two lane road with lots and lots of stop lights.  It is one of those roads that could have four lanes instead of two and still be backed up.  I have decided that the amount of traffic definitely affects the back ups.  But it is something deeper than the amount that causes the crazy “what the hell” backups that seem to occur more and more often.  My brother Sean and I have been saying for years that if someone puts on their brakes, the people behind them also put on their brakes and the ripple effect continues until you have stopped traffic.  This may be quite a bit simplified, compared to the real reasons, but I definitely think that we are on to something here.  It’s a reactive thing that turns into a chain reaction.  (yeah, yeah, all of you english folks can give up telling me that I explained something with the same term.  The only thing I can tell you is…”get over it”)