When ever I'm asked how it is that I get to work every day, some people are surprised to hear that I drive. Yes folks, I'm one of those people that DRIVES into Manhattan every day to work.I'm always surprised when people are surprised about that. It makes no sense. I watch the traffic reports on the morning newscasts and listen to traffic reports also on the radio and guess what? If you pay close attention to what they are showing and telling you on those two mediums, you'll notice that there are hundreds of thousands of others doing the same thing: driving. There are others like me who are driving and commuting.
It's no big deal. It is not that stressful. I'm fortunate that I do not have to generally be at work until 11:00 a.m.. Because of that, I miss all the earlier morning congestion and tie-ups. By the time I leave my home, traffic subsides exponentially for every 15 minutes closer to 11:00 a.m.. Attempting to enter Manhattan at 7 a.m. is a significantly different animal than entering Manhattan at 10 a.m.
I have all the comforts necessary to commute every day: lots of coffee, cell phone, car radio, XM radio, EZ-Pass, sunglasses, air-conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter, the New Jersey Star-Ledger and the right frame of mind. The biggest plus to driving is that I do not pay for parking. I park residentially on the Upper West Side. In fact, parking spots await me when I pull up near to work because alternate side of the street parking rules favor my hours.
For the uninitiated, NYC prohibits parking on one side of the street for a 90 minutes every day so that the city's street sweeper can brush the alternate side of the street clean every day. One day it's one side of the street, the other day it's the other side of the street as the signs indicate. Once the street sweeper passes, people jockey to park and leave their cars there for the day. I'm one of a few thousand that does that in that part of town and one of hundreds of thousands that does that throughout the City of New York's five Boros.
I'm convinced that I'm a very good and safe driver. I have never hit another vehicle. Except for the four years I lived in Staten Island, I have driven to work my entire working life. And, I had not had a driving summons like the one I was issued until that day in early June. This is my opinion about the ticket that I was issued: The city of Union New Jersey subscribes to the practice of setting-up drivers and to target them with summonses whether they've broken traffic laws or not.
Take my word for it, Union New Jersey along Route 22 is Union's traffic revenue candy store. It essentially is a revenue stream for this lousy and diseased municipality. The chummy relationship between the judges, the police officers and the union township prosecutor exacerbate this practice.
God's honest truth. I was driving down the two lane Route 22 and signaled my intention to cross over onto the next lane. I was signaling and slowing down to merge behind a car. The driver of that car refused to allow me to merge. He slowed when I slowed and It was obvious to me what he was doing. I slowed down enough to make eye contact with the driver and gestured to him to move forward with a wave of my hand. The other driver hits his brakes and forces me to merge in front of him. I do and he fires up his cherries. It's an unmarked with a plain clothes. It's now a traffic stop. Writes me up for "Careless Driving" because I took my hand off the steering wheel to "curse" him he said. You're fucked mister, talk to the judge.
I talked to the judge, we had a trial, the cop contradicted himself and lied through his teeth. Yet, the judge, unbelievably, sided with the cop. In a neutral setting, ANY court would have sided with me after the first minute or two.
I could have taken the prosecutor's cue after repeated appeals to have me take a plea of a lesser charge. Why should I? I didn't do anything wrong! $150 plus $34 court costs and 2 points vs. $150 plus $34 court costs and no points. I took a chance and got tagged with the points. I'm not concerned about the points. I at least let it be known to those crooked fucks that they had no case, they knew it, but they couldn't let me get away with it nor make their "detective" appear fallible in the eyes of the court even though I did.
The odds at work among the people that I know was that I was definitely going to get off on this one.
I was ticketed for moving violations (speeding) in 1979, 1987, 1989 and 1999. None of those however was attributed to fraud and dishonesty as was the case with Union Township, New Jersey. I paid the fines because I got caught speeding on those occasions. Period. This time it was different. I was incensed and I could not see straight for a couple of days after the summons and after the verdict.
Pigs.
Anyways, I believe that sometimes someone or some thing, like a higher power or a just a keen sense of intuition compels you to do something. That's been the case with me I believe. Car "tranny" failure 6 weeks ago, traffic ticket and high gas prices do no go overlooked by me. Also, the massive reconstruction project on I-78 that will go until the year 2011 has broken ground and driving recently has been a real grind that could get much worst before it gets better.
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1157090851289960.xml&coll=1
Coincidentally, Tony Soprano's official news paper did a piece earlier in the week about New Jerseyans' commuting habits:
http://www.nj.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-8/1156915653145820.xml?starledger?ntop&coll=1
Soooooo, having digested the above, in the last week I've been riding the train and it has been a welcome break. I get onto a train in my town and I'm at Penn Station 45 minutes later and at work four subway stops after that in the morning. An express no less. Summit, Newark and Penn Station....Zip!
I sprawl in the morning and in the evening and read on the Midtown Direct. Wifey and The Savages drop me off and pick me up. I get to smell the roses for a week before school starts for The Savages.
For a little while at least, riding is also a welcome change of pace. I can do the pro and con about the train vs. the car, but for me, the car in the long run is the only way to go. I get stuck at work and do long late hours fairly often that stretch beyond the time of my last opportunity to get home on the train. That's why I'm condemned to drive.
But, seeing familiar people from my town on the train, small talking others, people watching, getting a drink somewhere around Penn Station re-attaches me to others. That's a welcome change of pace.
Interactivity outside of the usual robots these last few days has been very therapeutic, especially with the go-go-go summer that I've been treading.
Breath deep...........exhale.
Ahhhhhhhhhh.
*!*
posted by JerryNJ @ 7:01 PM
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