People in Cars Are Dumb

Today I saw a retarded piece of driving, inspired by a retarded bit of traffic.

As I was getting on to a very backed up freeway, there was a woman in a small white station wagon that was trying to escape the traffic jam. She had tried to drive up the embankment and onto the onramp in hopes of weaving through oncoming traffic to get back to the side roads. But in trying to do this, she had high-centered her car on the embankment, and was now sitting immobile in her car, perpendicular to everyone getting on the freeway, talking animatedly on her cell phone. Just to rub it in, a land rover effortlessly did what she what she was trying to do when she got her car stuck. I guess SUVs do have a purpose.

Her valiant escape attempt was caused by the afore mentioned retarded bit of traffic (RBOT). The RBOT was a result of a sweeping line of flares that started in the far left lane and that arced all the way over to the right lane, leaving only the exit lane free. Everyone merged from 4 lanes to 1 exit lane, and drove thusly for a quarter mile. Then there was another sweeping line of flares positioned exactly the same way. 2 sets of flares and no accidents or police presence gets people suspicious, so at the second line of flares everyone merged back to fill up the 4 lanes, some people driving right over the still burning flares.

There was no reason for the flares, which means there was no reason for the traffic, which means there was no reason for the lady to get her self stuck by trying to drive up the side of a freeway onramp. Then again, there aren't many reasons for driving the wrong way up a freeway onramp.