You would think making it out the door in the morning 5 minutes earlier would not be a problem.
5 minutes is the difference between being in front of or behind the school bus.
5 minutes later really means 15 minutes later.
Now – I am all for school buses, they have a great potential to reduce driving or drop-off traffic. And this particular school bus is taking the kids probably 1-5 miles, depending on your pick-up location, along roads that are busy and do not have sidewalks, or reasonable alternatives.
Today I even got another potential delay when the garbage truck, also following this route, pulled into the line waiting behind the bus. Often the garbage trucks are as slow or slower than the school bus. Lack of said space along the road. Although I think they should plan their routes to avoid the arterials until after rush hour. Luckily the garbage truck did a semi-3-point turn and backed down a road, before we had reached the point where the bus stops pick-ups, so no real time loss.
Finally got to the next turn, where I drop the bus. It is a free right-turn yield lane kind of turn. At this point I stopped, only to almost be passed/rear-ended/side-swiped by a high-school student in a slightly lowered shiny black pick-em-up truck. I was stopped only because the person in the car in front of me had not quite figured out that she really could drive forward because the left turners in the road we were turning to were blocking all possible traffic from reaching our little lane. But you can never be too careful, so she carefully checked it all out, while I was just about crunched by a newbie driver that probably did understand the lights, and assumed everyone else did too.
In the last 1-1/2 miles of my 25 mile commute there are three high schools, two school districts and a catholic high school. Usually I only deal with real traffic from the first I encounter, as they are all coming from my direction to reach the high school. Since there is a split between the two school districts, there is only a small amount of true school traffic in the 3/4 mile between them. Now that the catholic school (a big one) has opened in between them, it should get interesting. But to be honest I have not gotten stuck in a jam with them … yet (1st year).
OK – I made it to work, and now need coffee.
Raincharm's Weblog 
October 30, 2008 at 6:06 pm |
Been there done that… No matter what time I plan to be out the door, somehow I always seem to be breaking my neck getting out the door at said time. Even though I have undoubtedly been up for a several hours beforehand and have done my 3-mile morning walk, etc.