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MAY 17, 2024
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DO SOMETHING BEFORE IT‘S CRASH GREAT TOO LATE
More Americans have died on US roads since 2006 than in World Wars I & II combined
I’m sitting here wondering will a matchbox will hold my clothes. I ain’t got no matches, got a long way to go. I’m ole poor boy, a long way from home. Guess I’ll never be happy, everything I do is wrong. (Carl Perkins)
One of the most maddening and puzzling things about highway driving is getting stuck in a traffic jam. “Stuck” is the operative word. The last exit is miles behind you, the next one miles ahead. There is nothing to do but wait, either for traffic to completely clear and let people get rolling again, or to inch forward enough to reach an exit ramp and break free. That’s the maddening part. The puzzling part is the odd experience of enduring a huge slowdown or stoppage, but as the flow eventually returns you never see any reason for the problem. No orange cones; no construction zone; no speed traps; no wreck or any lingering evidence of one. The whole thing was a complete mystery, its cause a phantom. To traffic engineers, these unexplained traffic jams are no mystery. They know exactly why traffic can slow to a crawl for miles for no apparent reason. Believe it or not, it’s all about those four bracketed words above. Or to save time we
Carl Perkins spent a lifetime making a fortune singing his songs. He toured the world with his guitar and his wig, making us all happy as our hearts thumped to the rhythm of rockabilly. But I think Carl was on to something. He might’ve had an insight into this simmering insecurity that dwells in most of our souls. While growing up, we tend to look at those around us and think they may be taller, prettier, smarter, richer, or happier. It ain’t so. In reality, they have the same insecurities that each of us suffer from. It is a human thing. Gradually, through education and maturity, we come to understand that all of us are pretty much the same. That which makes us differ is our work ethic, our understanding
COURSE
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could go with just one: tailgating. It’s true, and there is an abundance of research from all over the world to prove the point. The science of traffic flow is heavy on math — and the numbers offer plenty of reasons to avoid tailgating — but a tremendous amount of real world and test track evidence clearly establishes that tailgating is the sworn enemy of smooth traffic flow and the people who want it. Tailgating is by far the most common cause of phantom traffic jams. It works like this in heavy, congested traffic: Driver #1 is sailing along minding his own business, although he’s closer to the car ahead than he should be. But that front car slows down, or a car moves between the front car and Driver #1. Driver #1 taps his brakes, maybe for just a second. What happens next: the car behind Driver #1 brakes for two seconds, the person behind him for four, then the next car six seconds, the one after that for ten seconds, then 12, then 20. The slowdown
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TAILGATING CREATES TRAFFIC JAMS
Please see CRASH COURSE page 10
BASED ON A TRUE STORY (most of the time) A series by Bad Billy Laveau
of personal limitations, and more importantly, how we excel with the talents that we are born with. But talent alone is not enough. You must develop your talent. It is said that being a genius is not enough. You must be a genius at something. Carl Perkins took his innate insecurity and developed it into a rockabilly song that makes your toes tap and your fingers snap. He could have sat at home and worried about his receding hairline. But he didn’t do that. Carl heard Big Joe Turner’s line: Like a one-eyed cat peeping in a seafood store, I see you ain’t a kid no more. (Shake Rattle & Roll). Carl did not need the “glass half full vs. glass half empty” lecture in a college psychology class. He developed what he felt. It was Please see BAD BILLY page 9
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