As many know, the beltline can be a crazy place to drive. This traffic nightmare has been a focus of the law enforcement community this year. There have been 2 deadly accidents in the last year involving semi trucks, plus numerous others that happen daily. So the law enforcement decided to crack down. They heavily patrolled the Beltine from 8am-2pm on Wednesday. They had 17 officers on that stretch of road. According to news reports more than 300 cars were pulled over.
I lucked out because the bulk of the patrolling was during hours in which I do not drive the beltline. Even though the Beltline wasn't being patrolled when I drove home the effects were still felt. I admit, I am one of the speeders on the beltline. Although I fall under that category I am NOT one of the people who speeds, doesn't use their signal, or cuts people off. I admit to tailgating, but that mostly occurs when the flow of traffic is 65 or 70 mph and there is someone driving 50 in the left hand lane. For the most part, I leave a nice cushion between myself and the car in front of me. If the flow of traffic isn't 65 or 70 mph I don't try to speed around everyone and get ahead of everyone. One of my favorite things is to watch someone who comes up behind me fast, realizes that traffic isn't going fast enough for them, switches lanes several times trying to get around the line of traffic that I am in. Then in the end they either end up right where they started, behind me, or further behind me.
So anyway, when I got on the beltine yesterday I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know if the patrol cars had so much fun they decided to stay out longer or if they had enough. I did not see any cops the whole way home. Even without the police presence traffic didn't drive much over 60 mph. Most of the time traffic flow was 55 mph. People, for the most part, didn't tailgate, used their blinkers and drove like civil human beings. Granted I do NOT like driving 55 the ride was pleasurable. I didn't have to worry about some jackass riding my tail or driving erratically endangering myself and everyone around them. I don' t think that the ride took any longer than it normally would either. It was just odd, it felt like an episode of The Twilight Zone, this was the same stretch of highway but people were oddly relaxed.
