Carla and me
On Friday, I drove to the University of Toronto to give a talk. This was the first time I’d ever driven on a freeway alone. I didn’t drive at all until a year ago, for four reasons:
- Global warming. I assuaged my conscience by buying a Prius (though admittedly, given the waiting lists for hybrids, I’m probably increasing CO2 concentrations by preventing someone who drives more than I do from having my car).
- Fear of getting lost. The solution to this one was “Carla,” my sultry female computerized travel companion (“Proceed on the current route for 0.3 miles”). I realize that for some guys, Carla would feel like a direct assault on their virility — especially since she’s always right. But I love her, and I predict that in five years’ time, everyone else will want her too.
- Lack of any social life that would necessitate a car. I’ve since realized that this was as much a symptom as a cause of my carlessness.
- Fear of dying a gruesome death. I haven’t yet licked this one, as became evident on Friday.
To avoid the traffic, I left Waterloo at 5:30am (yes, I’d been up all night). Unfortunately, that’s when all the trucks were out, and trucks on a freeway make me nervous. See, the problem with freeways is that there are no red lights — and therefore, no time to hunt down the neurons firing off about Futurama or BQP/qpoly, and refocus their attention on the road. It’s like having to play Super Mario all the way through without pausing — the differences being that there are no stars or mushrooms, you only get one life, and it’s your actual life. (Also, you can’t stomp on the goombas, since they’re people too.)
So when I finally pulled into the parking garage at U of T, palms white and sweaty on the steering wheel, I started laughing hysterically: “I made it! I’m still alive! At least in this branch of the wavefunction, I’m alive! Joy to the world!” That I hadn’t yet written the talk that I was to give in two hours seemed utterly insignificant.
For the ride home, I asked Carla to find me a route that avoided freeways, and ended up zigzagging through the small towns of southeast Ontario. The stoplights looked as pretty as the setting sun.
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Comment #1 October 9th, 2005 at 10:01 am
I live in Toronto (ah, the sacrifices you make for education) and I think that every day. “Joy to the world, I’m not dead!” Congrats on making it through the evil known as the 401 unscathed! Hope the talk went well…
Comment #2 October 9th, 2005 at 11:53 am
The bad news is that freeways are safer per vehicle mile than inter-city two-lane highways. (I think. I wish I had a good reference for you.) But I agree that freeways require a lot of practice.
The one time that I almost got killed on the road was when we tried to pass a very slow car on a two-lane highway and it sped up to prevent us from doing it. Since then, our rule is never to pass on two-lane roads except in truly egregious circumstances.
NB: Your main blog page has an unusually long lag in updating the number of comments posted.
Comment #3 October 9th, 2005 at 2:55 pm
Kudos to you for resisting the necessary evil that is the automobile for so long. And kudos for getting a hybrid when you finally did succumb.
I’m still carless and proud, but the sprawl in Calgary is so horrible that it’s next to impossible to live here without owning a car. One has to make a lot of sacrifices in order to make it work. A carless student, for example, is almost forced to rent an overpriced basement in a dilapidated 1950’s suburban “dream home” near the university. (I say “almost” because the pathetic light rail transit here is actually useful if you happen to live near a train station).
I take some comfort in the fact that environmentally-conscious people like us will eventually compose the majority of society. Unfortunately, when that happens we’ll have to deal with these horribly planned cities left for us by previous generations.
That’s my rant. Ok. It’s out of my system now. Thanks.
Gus
Comment #4 October 9th, 2005 at 6:17 pm
Miss HT: What’s so bad about Toronto? (Sorry, I haven’t spent much time there.)
Comment #5 October 9th, 2005 at 6:20 pm
Greg: Maybe the reason freeways are safer is just that you spend more time on two-lane highways, hence there’s more time for an accident?
Anyway, I also noticed that glitch with the number of comments, and I emailed blogger.com about it.
Comment #6 October 9th, 2005 at 11:51 pm
Of course you realize that on the 401 between Waterloo and Toronto there is NO time when the trucks aren’t out.
Comment #7 October 10th, 2005 at 9:30 am
Toronto? It’s got it’s good points and it’s bad points. But here goes on the crappy stuff:
1) I can’t walk outside alone at night (that probably wouldn’t be a problem for you though)
2) There’s just too many people… everywhere! I grew up in Oshawa and Whitby. While I’m not a huge fan of those cities either, their size was just about right for me
3) Everyone seems to be grumpy and in a rush.
It’s points number 2 & 3 which make driving in and around T.O. a little sketchy…
Comment #8 October 10th, 2005 at 10:46 am
I think that the fatality rate per passenger mile generally goes up with higher speed. Nonetheless, an accident at 55mph is already quite dangerous and I think that two-lane highways are less forgiving than freeways are. It is much easier to run off the road, or cross into opposing traffic, or hit an animal in the road, etc.
In fact my second most serious traffic event was when I hit a deer that had darted onto a two-lane highway.
Note also that drowsiness is another significant factor in accidents. I don’t think that I could drive safely after pulling an all-nighter. Even without that, drowsiness is the most dissatisfying aspect of my inter-city driving.
Comment #9 October 10th, 2005 at 1:25 pm
The problem with the stretch of the 401 from Waterloo to Toronto is that there is hardly any enforcement of speed limits. As a result even the heavy trucks do 160 km/hr! I guess this is generally a problem in Canada. I feel the traffic laws are more enforced in the US.
Comment #10 October 10th, 2005 at 4:05 pm
Where does one get this “Carla” system? It sounds like interesting.
Comment #11 October 10th, 2005 at 4:07 pm
Sorry about my typo (like) in my last comment …
Comment #12 October 10th, 2005 at 7:02 pm
Anonymous: I got mine with my car. You can also buy them as add-ons for about $1K. There are several brands (Magellan, Garmin…).
Comment #13 October 10th, 2005 at 9:56 pm
My car is called the “Electron” because its bright blue color is called by Honda, “Electron Blue.” I think of my car as an Electron, too. Its path is uncertain, though pulled here and there by strong magnetic fields such as Starbucks Coffee shops or bookstores. Think of traffic as a path of particles in which they travel in quantum-mechanical ways. I can’t tell where my Electron is if I know how fast it’s going, and vice versa. And it emits photons if I turn. (Turn signals, that is, though they’re in the wrong direction for synchrotron radiation.) So if you think of traffic as a flow of many different particles with different speeds, energy levels, etc. you will at least have a more entertaining and less terrifying drive.