Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Last night, we finished watching Pete’s Dragon. I’d seen it before, and so had Jennifer, but we wanted to show it to Owen. We’ve rewatched a few films with him over the past month and a half. They’ve all held up pretty well: The Wizard of Oz, The Princess Bride, Babe, and Monsters, Inc. are all still awesome. The Muppet Movie and Popeye were both still decent.
Pete’s Dragon, however…not so much. We shut it off on Sunday since it was getting late and the movie didn’t seem to be headed towards an end any time soon. Last night, Jennifer didn’t even feel like watching the rest of it (I didn’t, either, but I wanted to watch it with Owen).
Anyway, when the movie finally finished up, I was just about to hit stop on the DVD player, when Jennifer called me into the other room to help with Isla. About two minutes later, I hear belly-laughing from Owen – he’s cracking up so much he can hardly talk. I went back into the living room to find that he’s so excited by what he’s watching that he’s actually gotten up from his chair and stood closer to the TV.
“Look Daddy! Look!” he kept cracking up. He even turned my head for me so as to make sure I was looking.
So, I guess the DVD has some extras on it and, normally, for such a mediocre film, I wouldn’t bother watching any extras, but since I left the DVD player on, it must’ve automatically started playing the extras. Specifically, a Donald Duck short film from the 1940s.
I don’t think Owen had ever heard Donald talk before, but every time he did, Owen laughed some more, and looked at me as if to say: “Can you believe this guy’s voice!” When it was over, he even begged to watch it again and wanted to show his mama.
Today, I found it at YouTube. I think it was included on the Pete’s Dragon DVD because it also features a lighthouse. I think it’s safe to say that Owen felt this Donald Duck short was better than 2+ hours of Pete’s Dragon. It is:
Thursday, 23 September 2010
Today, for the second time in a row, it took me an hour to get home from work. This is just unacceptable. Traffic drives me insane, especially since I don’t like driving anyways.
Yesterday, I couldn’t figure out the source of the traffic, so I assume it was just incompetant drivers. I even took an early exit on my way home in an attempt to dodge the congestion, only to find an accident on the side street. Everyone always has to galk at those things, while I pride myself in not gawking at all – in fact, I’ve even honked at the car in front of me if that person is slowing down to galk.
Here’s a tip: don’t be the cause of other accidents by slowing down to rubberneck at existing accidents. Just keep it flowing smoothly, please. Yes, I know people are curious to see if the victims are someone they know, but if you feel that it might be someone you know, then either pull over and inspect from the safety of the shoulder, or just get home as quick as you can and call your friends to see if they’re okay.
Today, at least, the traffic was partially caused by the weather. Man, there was a lot of water on the road.
My plan is to leave work earlier tomorrow to get a headstart on most of these morons.
You should tell Owen that Grampy can talk like Donald Duck. Or maybe you don’t want too. You know how Grampy is if he gets someone to look at him doing something, he may get pretty irritating.
I’ll have to tell Owen that.
Yes, Grampy might get irritating, but as long as he’s keeping Owen occupied, I think the net value will be worth it.
Phantom jams can be predicted by mathematical models without the need for adding in driver incompetence as a component.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/10/3/033001/pdf/1367-2630_10_3_033001.pdf
Further, a “gawker slow-down” would most likely occur even if the road were filled with nothing but James Zimmermans.
When you approach an accident and decide not to look, are you able to drive faster than if you did look? Most likely the person in front of you is hampering your attempts to speed away. Whether they are gawking or not, they are being hampered by the person in front of them. When you reach the front of the wave, you are limited by how fast you can, then, accelerate — both by the acceleration of your own car (the physics of your car and personal preference for acceleration rate) and the acceleration of the car in front of you.
The slowdown can be caused by the initial accident, emergency responders, the slowing down of opposing traffic… And once it has started, it can sustain itself without the need of gawkers feeding the cycle.
What’s more, impatient drivers exacerbate traffic waves while even patient drivers can actually erase traffic waves. Which is why I liked your “just keep it flowing smoothly” comment.
Here’s a tip: leave a large buffer in front of you when you drive. If you find yourself approaching a slow-down, try to match the average speed of traffic so you are not stopping and starting. While it only takes one person to create a traffic wave, it can take one person to break it up.
I couldn’t get this link to work today, but it is to a site that gathers together a lot of research into traffic. The author has some interesting ideas about how to erase traffic waves.
http://trafficwaves.org
Hopefully the site is just temporarily down.
I tried some of his ideas the other day and while I couldn’t tell if there was any improvement behind me, I did have someone switch lanes to the shoulder to go around me. They were then able to speed up and come to a complete stop up in front of me. They were just starting to move when my car reached them.
Also, that site has links to some traffic simulators. You can experiment with speeds and following distances to see just how jams form from nothing and how you can help alleviate them.
Also, your tip about pulling over to the shoulder — this would cause another perturbation which would further exacerbate the problem. In most cases, traffic is moving slow enough to get your gawk on without adding to the slowdown.
Thanks for the traffic waves site; it has some cool info on it.
I realize that much of the reason why people slow down near an accident is because the car in front of them is going slow, and though I find that frustrating, I fully understand it. What I was specifically talking about is when a driver slows down – not due to the car in front of them – but just to gawk at an accident. On this particular day, for example, the car in front of me slowed down from 55 to about 40 mph. There were no cars in front of him that would have warranted this, he simply wanted to inspect the two cars pulled over on the side of the road. That’s unacceptable.
And in the case of honking that I was referring to, I was driving north on Cedar Avenue (towards the MOA) one morning. Two cars, on the shoulder, had gotten into a major accident. One car was facing the wrong way, and both vehicles looked unable to be driven. There was one car about 200 feet ahead of me, and no cars in front of that one. But that car slammed on his breaks, reducing his speed from 65mph to (an illegal) 25mph in a matter of seconds. I had to quickly veer into another lane to avoid hitting him, while simultaneously hoping there were no cars in the lane I was transferring into to hit. I laid on my horn for 10 seconds or more as I approached and passed that car. On a three-lane highway, there was simply no reason for that driver – in the middle lane – to do what he did. If he knew the victims, or if he felt that he could somehow offer assistance, that’s fine, but he should’ve signaled and pulled over at a reasonable pace.
James, if there are cars at a complete stop in the middle of the lane, and the car approaching them does not reduce their speed and simply signals and moves to another lane, there will be a high chance that the car behind him will slam into the parked car on the road, and if not that car, then the next. In that case, you should be thankful that the car in front of you slammed on his breaks and reduced speed, forcing you to do so as well and alerting you that there was an issue ahead.
I’m trying to stress here that if there is an accident or stalled vehicle directly in my path, or even in the next lane over, then I fully understand why the cars ahead of me would reduce speed. Even if I was the only car on the highway (besides the ones in the accident) I would still reduce my speed and switch to the farthest lane possible.
But what I’m referring to is when there are cars on the side of the road – sometimes doing something as innocuous as changing a flat – and everyone feels compelled to slow waaaaay down to watch it. The very word “rubberneck” implies that the stalled vehicle is not in the way, but is in the peripheral.
Here’s a breakdown of the scenario: Let’s say there are four cars on the road: Car A and B were in an accident. They pulled over onto the shoulder; they’re not blocking traffic. Car C is driving in the center lane. They see the two cars on the shoulder and decide to decelerate from 70 to 30 mph. They ignore the road in front of them and begin gawking at the cars parked on the shoulder. Car D (which I’m driving) is also in the center lane. It was ~1,000 feet behind Car C but, thanks to C’s rapid deceleration, is now only ~100 feet behind C and the gap is rapidly shrinking. Since there are no other cars on the freeway, I’m fee to move into another lane (I wisely pick the one farthest from A & B). But I also decide to honk at C for nearly causing another accident. This isn’t hypothetical – this is exactly what happened once on my way to work.
More often, however, there are other cars around, so I can’t switch lanes quick enough without risking cutting someone off, so I end up slamming on my breaks, too. This annoys me even more.
I misread your above comment, I tought the accident had just happened and the cars were in the road. I missed where it said they were on the shoulder.