This is a post about the state of transportation in the US, yet it highlights several layered problems that face US.
I have been commuting about 1 hour and 20 minutes, uphill both ways, mostly along an interstate in Pennsylvania.
Some days I am frustrated by folks that apparently weren’t paying attention when learning the rules of the road here.
If you are not actively passing folks driving the right lane, you should be in the right lane.
If you are in the left lane, and you become aware that someone is behind you, you should move to the right lane as soon as safely possible.
If you are driving in the left lane below the posted speed limit, you are in the wrong lane for sure for sure.
If there is a car disabled on the side of the road, you should move into the lane opposite of that car.
If there is traffic enforcement activity, you should move to the lane opposite of the activity.
If there is road work, you should drive the posted speed, and be in the lane requested.
At any rate, it is incredible frustrating and dangerous to drive slowly in the left lane, and it results in people attempting to pass on the right of you.
The first one hundred days will feature daily reminders of the role of the left lane and safety and etiquette involving freeway driving. It will feature reminders from traffic engineers, members of state highway patrols, safety engineers, road workers, professional drivers and so on.
I thought I would wax eloquent on the state of public transportation, but it seems to me a good time to highlight exactly how free ALL of US are presently in the United States…
How free are WE if:
- are beholden to the speed of someone who refuses to leave the left lane…
- 1 in 4 persons incarcerated on Earth are on US soil
- law enforcement officers enjoy qualified immunity for extra judicial execution of civilians
- every 21 seconds someone is arrested for possession of drugs
- you can be priced out of access to life sustaining medication
- 1 in 5 US kids don’t have enough to eat
- hundreds of thousands of US folks don’t have shelter
- lack of shelter is increasingly criminalized
- mental health care is inaccessible and/or unavailable
- poor mental health is increasingly criminalized
- Federal ballot access and election typically requires hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars
- Presidential elections cost $50 million or more
and importantly for the purposes of this endeavor… if you only effectively have two choices for President, determined by two corporate entities masquerading as political parties…
Let’s do something different for 2028…