What I have learnt about commuting

So I've been living in Wicker Park for about a month now and am starting to adjust to the different commute into work each morning.  Its not that it takes me much longer (well, at least in the mornings - the evenings are a whole different ball of wax), its just that now my commute seems more, well, douchier.

I thought I was a fairly well-seasoned road warrier, having spent a couple of years as a sales rep back in the UK in the distant mists of time, driving upwards of 1,000 miles a week, as well as three painful ones "enjoying" the New Jersey and Philadelphia Turnpikes driving to/from my client during my Strat Planning Years.  I particularly used to LOVE it (really, I did) when I'd have an 8am meeting at my client's offices, so would get up at 4.30am to be on the road by 5.30am to make it in time (it was a solid 2hr drive) - to then arrive and only then be told the meeting had been canceled.  Those days were just so special.

But even I have been surprised by the simply heroic levels of ineptitude and general arseholery that I've observed on the I-94 on the 15 Mile Road to Deerfield (also the title of one of The Eagles lesser-known albums).  What are these people thinking?  Do they all have wives in labor in the back-seat who need to get to a hospital stat cos the baby's head is crowning?  Or are they all just very angry people who are on a mission to cause as much angst, death and destruction as they steamroller their way to their destination without regard for anyone else on the road?  Almost every single day, there are at least one or two bits of atrocious driving that make me shake my head in wonderment and make me feel very grateful I'm not that shitty a person.

In case you ever come to Chicago and find yourself on one of our delightful Interstate highways, here's what I've learned so far so that you can drive like a local:

Contrary to popular belief, the hard shoulder is, in fact, a full-on traffic lane, so please, go ahead and drive full speed down it.  I know you'll have to cut me up to get into my boring, mundane normal lane when your special one runs out or tapers off, but really - i don't mind, go right ahead.

Don't think about the traffic.  You will find out that, like me, that you are a reverse psychic with manifesting powers.  The very second you think to yourself "well, the traffic isn't too bad this morning" then BOOM.  Insta-jam.  Traffic will suddenly appear out of nowhere and will then be backed up for miles.  So, when you catch yourself about to think and pass judgement on that day's traffic flow - Just Say No and think of something, anything else instead.

While commuting in the morning rush hour definitely seems time sensitive (if I leave earlier, say 6.15am, I can be in the office by 7am, saving myself at least 15mins), commuting back into Chicago in the evening seems to be stubbornly time-insensitive.  It doesn't seem to matter when I leave the office in the afternoon - my drive home always takes about an hour and a half.  Kind of annoying, really, when you feel you've left the office early enough that the traffic gods should really cut you a break and let you get home just a tinsy-bit quicker than normal.  But they obviously don't give a sod and are capricious bastards so i'm certainly looking forward to the winter and what fun japes they are going to play on my commute home when the white stuff starts falling from the sky.

Baseball games are as annoying, traffic-wise, in Chicago as they are in San Francisco.  Its even worse in that this is congestion that isn't even serving the purpose of supporting a team that might actually win a game.  Pointless traffic.

The only bright spot, like the ice fields on Ceres, is that occasionally, just occasionally, the rozzers really do get the right man.  You know, the tool who drives like he thinks he's in the Grand Prix, weaving in and out of all the traffic at breakneck speed and who thinks his shit don't stink and that speed limits are for other people?  You know the one?  Well, I had one of those zoom past me the other week as I drove down to the lakefront for my group training run.  What he didn't know was that there was a police cruiser about 3 or 4 cars ahead of me.  Ah...sweet justice.  As I slowed down to take the exit off the freeway to the lakefront, there he was, pulled over by the state police and getting his ass handed to him on a plate.  Schaudenfreude is sometimes a glorious thing.