Curiosity At The Wrong Time

This morning, I left for work on time. In fact, I even left earlier than usual because I was ready. As I got in my car, I thought that since I had a lot of time, I could treat myself to Starbucks or kolaches, but decided not to. I didn't want the extra calories and I wanted to save my money. As I would soon find out, it was a good thing I didn't stop to get anything.

Traffic in the morning isn't too bad on I-10, usually. Sometimes the entrance ramp is backed up and traffic is slow until we reach the point where an extra lane opens up. From there, it's smooth sailing all the way to the school. When there's slow traffic, it takes me 5 minutes or less to break through it. Knowing how bad traffic can be, I'm happy with 5 minutes of slow traffic.

Anyway, traffic was horrible this morning. The exit ramp was backed up as usual but the line was extremely long. I drove past it and snuck in line at the front - I wasn't in the mood to wait. Traffic picked up a bit when I reached the extra lane and zoomed down it, passing many cars. All of a sudden, at Beltway 8, all the cars screeched to a stop. A bit annoyed, I wondered what was up. It took me 40 minutes - yes, 40 minutes! - to get to the Silber/Antoine exit. I should have already been at the school by then.

At the Silber/Antoine exit, traffic miraculously opened up. I went from 20mph to 70mph in a second (ok, maybe not a second but you get the idea). Traffic flowed beautifully from that point on. I glanced to my left because there was a cop car, a tow truck and a huge pick-up truck (Dodge or F-350). Apparently, the white truck encountered a problem or he had a one-vehicle accident. His guardrail was a little messed up. The driver of the truck and the cop were working together to remove the guardrail from the truck.

What's ironic is that the truck was in the HOV lane. Cars in the HOV lanes were zooming by at the speed limit - but all 5 lanes on I-10 was backed up for miles! There could not have been any other factors for the backed-up traffic. The moment I passed the "incident" was the moment that traffic became extremely clear.

I understand that there's a natural curiosity when it comes to accidents. Just yesterday, on my way to work, I encountered a two-vehicle accident at an intersection a mile from the school. From the looks of it, the cars collided head-on (or almost). There wasn't any traffic so I drove past it quickly - but there were actually spectators sitting in lawn chairs at the intersection (the accident happened in front of a residential neighborhood). Maybe they were occupants of the vehicles involved in the accident - but I'm positive some of them just came out to watch - there were about 8 people standing around.

Anyway, it's alright to be curious about things. You'll learn a thing or two and discover hidden talents and interests. But when curiosity makes me late for work - it's not ok!