Ken Berwitz
Apropos of nothing political….
As someone who frequently drives New Jersey\’s Garden State Parkway (GSP), I have to ask whether the state troopers there are on some kind of boycott.
The reason I ask is that, over the past several months, it has become so crazy to drive it that I\’m amazed there have not been more serious, even fatal, accidents.
Let\’s take yesterday as a case in point. My wife and I drove from central to north Jersey to see family.
On most highways/parkways, you can go up to 7 – 10 miles an hour over the speed limit, without any expectation a trooper will bother you. On the GSP we have always found that you can go even faster – say, 10 or even 15 miles over the speed limit.
But in recent months, that has become 20 -25 miles an hour over the speed limit – sometimes even more – without a worry in the world about being ticketed.
And, thus emboldened, you then get the idiots who think this is their personal raceway, and cars which are in front of them, even cars traveling far over the speed limit, are obstacles which have no business being on their road.
Like, for example, when you\’re doing 75MPH in a 55 zone (just to keep up with traffic in the left lane), having someone run up 10 – 15 feet behind you, angrily flashing for you to move out of the lane – while there is a car next to you and you couldn\’t do it even if you wanted to – and then, eventually, finding an opening, zooming by you, Intentionally cutting you off within a few feet out of vengeance…and then tailgating the car that used to be in front of you.
The GSP, many years ago, was a road you thought twice about speeding on. You kept within 10 MPH of the limit or you knew you stood a good shot at being pulled over.
But now? It\’s Indy, where the road idiots would do 500 if they could figure out how.
Maybe it\’s time for state troopers to start seriously patrolling again.
Ok, back to politics, where, instead of the Indy 500 we have the DC 535…..and we\’d be better off if most of them were in the pit.
