What's Going On On The Roads?

Just a couple of observations from the road recently:

1. Well, for starters, my minivan passed 90,000 miles last week. Woo hoo! Almost 6 years to the day, so that’s a nice round 15,000 miles per year. Ouch.

2. Now, about our road driving culture. I don’t think we’ve learned our lesson from last year’s gas price hikes. Yes, gas prices are down 30%+ from last year. It’s still not cheap (at least, from a US historical standpoint). But we certainly seem to be driving a whole lot more.

   Last year, driving up and down the I-95 corridor between Richmond and NOVA wasn’t too bad, at least at the times we normally drive. You could sense folks weren’t driving as much.

   Well, this year, it’s at least as bad as years before last year. In fact, I could potentially make the case it’s the worst ever. Someone in the family has driven the corridor each of the last 3 weekends, and it has been extremely tough and congested each time, especially compared to last year. Part of me wonders if this is the vacation impact due to the recession, with folks spending fewer dollars on vacations, essentially keeping folks more local and/or driving (versus flying).

   I guess higher fuel prices are going to be the only way that folks will cut back on driving.

3. Lastly, on a slightly humorous note (as long as it doesn’t happen to me), be careful if you park a small car near a body of water. I’m guessing many of you are familiar with the Smart Car, one of the smallest cars on the road today. Well, apparently, folks in the Netherlands are finding their Smart Cars being lifted and dumped into the canals as a not-so-nice prank.

   I guess my 90k-mile minivan probably won’t suffer the same fate.