Life is a Highway: Opportunism on the Interstates
5 o'clock. Interstate-294 west of Chicago near O'Hare International Airport. A car swerves violently into the right hand exit lane, causing the next car to slam on the brakes and peel into the shoulder. Car horns blare, certain fingers are raised violently, and the flow of traffic behind the swerving car comes to a screeching halt. Scenes like this are a daily occurrence on the interstates around Chicago and other major cities around the country. This is synonymous with rush hour traffic.
When I was younger, I was always baffled by what caused the huge traffic backups, especially those during the peak hours of commute. I knew that accidents and construction projects were common culprits, but traffic still always confused me. "If people just pay attention and drive the speed limit, traffic should never be a problem," I naively thought to myself.
Then came the summer of 2017 and my mind was opened to a whole new understanding of traffic. As a part of my internship over the summer, I was required to drive all over the Chicagoland area on a daily basis. Traveling to a different location almost every day, I become pretty familiar with the major interstates surrounding the metropolis. From my location in the southwest suburbs, I was driving along Interstates 88, 355 and 294 every morning, usually to locations closer to the city and often to areas in the north and northwest suburbs. While the morning drives weren't always too bad, the afternoon commutes heading back south and west were eye-opening experiences.
The illustration I depicted earlier was something that I would see almost every day, if not multiple times each day. With the highways flooded with exhausted, eager to get home workers, drivers often take traffic issues into their own hands. Rather than get into the already backed up exit lane early, drivers would continue driving at the speed of the flow of traffic, and wait until much further down the interstate to slow down and creep between 2 cars and into the exit lane. This opportunistic behavior benefits the drivers, who get to skip out on waiting in the line of traffic, but hurts the rest of the drivers whom they surpass in the highway exiting process.
Watching this behavior in person on a daily basis during my afternoon commute home made me realize that opportunism may be the one of biggest contributor to traffic issues, in addition to accidents and construction. If drivers would simply get in the exit lane when the end of the line is in sight, the pace of the exit lane may actually improve a lot. If you think about it, slow moving exit lanes could possibly be eliminated, as the backups are probably the result of the behavior I described in the first paragraph and subsequent slow-down of all the cars behind the original swerving car.
While I am sure we are all guilty of doing something of this nature on the interstates when we are eager to get home from work, over the course of this summer I really tried to not be opportunistic in my driving behavior. Driving similar commutes every day of the summer, I came to the realization that being opportunistic would merely shave off a minute or two from my commute and that it really wasn't worth it. I also hoped that, however unlikely, people would start to follow my lead and also not act opportunistically even though they had the chance to.
In my trying to not act opportunistically on the Chicago interstates, I was uselessly hoping that other people would follow suit. Would this help the problem of traffic backups around exit ramps? In reality, we probably can't say as there are so many other factors involved such as traffic on the interstate or road on which the exit ramp leads, accidents, drivers not paying attention, among others. However, in my mind, this answers the question of traffic that I had when I was younger. I think that if people didn't act in the opportunistic way that we know they do, that traffic could be significantly reduced and the social effects would be felt by all drivers.
When I was younger, I was always baffled by what caused the huge traffic backups, especially those during the peak hours of commute. I knew that accidents and construction projects were common culprits, but traffic still always confused me. "If people just pay attention and drive the speed limit, traffic should never be a problem," I naively thought to myself.
Then came the summer of 2017 and my mind was opened to a whole new understanding of traffic. As a part of my internship over the summer, I was required to drive all over the Chicagoland area on a daily basis. Traveling to a different location almost every day, I become pretty familiar with the major interstates surrounding the metropolis. From my location in the southwest suburbs, I was driving along Interstates 88, 355 and 294 every morning, usually to locations closer to the city and often to areas in the north and northwest suburbs. While the morning drives weren't always too bad, the afternoon commutes heading back south and west were eye-opening experiences.
The illustration I depicted earlier was something that I would see almost every day, if not multiple times each day. With the highways flooded with exhausted, eager to get home workers, drivers often take traffic issues into their own hands. Rather than get into the already backed up exit lane early, drivers would continue driving at the speed of the flow of traffic, and wait until much further down the interstate to slow down and creep between 2 cars and into the exit lane. This opportunistic behavior benefits the drivers, who get to skip out on waiting in the line of traffic, but hurts the rest of the drivers whom they surpass in the highway exiting process.
Watching this behavior in person on a daily basis during my afternoon commute home made me realize that opportunism may be the one of biggest contributor to traffic issues, in addition to accidents and construction. If drivers would simply get in the exit lane when the end of the line is in sight, the pace of the exit lane may actually improve a lot. If you think about it, slow moving exit lanes could possibly be eliminated, as the backups are probably the result of the behavior I described in the first paragraph and subsequent slow-down of all the cars behind the original swerving car.
While I am sure we are all guilty of doing something of this nature on the interstates when we are eager to get home from work, over the course of this summer I really tried to not be opportunistic in my driving behavior. Driving similar commutes every day of the summer, I came to the realization that being opportunistic would merely shave off a minute or two from my commute and that it really wasn't worth it. I also hoped that, however unlikely, people would start to follow my lead and also not act opportunistically even though they had the chance to.
In my trying to not act opportunistically on the Chicago interstates, I was uselessly hoping that other people would follow suit. Would this help the problem of traffic backups around exit ramps? In reality, we probably can't say as there are so many other factors involved such as traffic on the interstate or road on which the exit ramp leads, accidents, drivers not paying attention, among others. However, in my mind, this answers the question of traffic that I had when I was younger. I think that if people didn't act in the opportunistic way that we know they do, that traffic could be significantly reduced and the social effects would be felt by all drivers.
Given the subject matter of your post, you might find this joke apt.
ReplyDeleteYou might ask yourself whether students who come from the Chicago area when driving around Champaign-Urbana, which is far less congested regarding road traffic except possibly during home football games, act less opportunistically behind the wheel or if the behavior from when living at home carries over. I don't know the answer to that. But I have my own experience that I can relate.
I grew up in NYC, in Bayside Queens. We lived two blocks from the Long Island Expressway, sometimes jokingly referred to as the world's biggest parking lot. After getting my job here I would sometimes fly home to see my parents. In Champaign, I was a laid back driver and quite courteous of drivers in other vehicles. Once I got to New York, the aggressive driving would return with a vengeance.
I really don't know if that experience generalizes or not. But for now let's say it does. This would imply that the environment matters for how much people behave opportunistically. In a ruthless environment, most everyone behaves that way. In a calmer environment, many people behave in a more decent manner.
If that is true and if mangers understand this and take it as a guiding principle, then promoting calm in the workplace becomes a goal. I will note that some companies deliberately go the other way and promote competition between their employees. The payment structure at these places is much like winner-take-all rather than everyone-shares-in-the-success. If both types of companies exist within the same sector, it then becomes interesting to consider why some people work at one type while others work at the other type. Would the market be separating out workers based on how aggressive or calm they are? It's something interesting to ponder.
I do agree that people in general act differently based on the situation they are in. Drawing from my experience this summer again, one of my coworkers was from Champaign and had never experienced the Chicago-style of driving and traffic. In the first day or two of our time working together, he was commenting on the insanity of the interstates around Chicago and how he was having to take a more aggressive approach to driving as well.
DeleteIn terms of a workplace, I also think it's interesting that some people work in highly competitive industries or companies, while others choose to avoid that. I think it probably stems from the environment in which they grew up. A person who grew up in a highly populated area and attended a competitive private high school, is probably more likely to pursue a career in a highly competitive industry because they have never known anything different. In contrast, I think that a person from a rural area and a laid-back upbringing would shy away from the sort of company that promotes a high level of competition.
Personally, similar to my driving attitude, my competitiveness in the workplace falls somewhere in the middle. I don't necessarily desire to work in a highly competitive workplace, but I think I could manage if I needed to. It's difficult to say without having done it yet in my life, though. It will be interesting to see how my opinion on this topic might change over the next few years.
To start off, I really liked the structure of your blog post; a catchy start followed by a clear story. I agree with you that opportunism may be the one of biggest contributor to traffic issues. The first thing that comes to my mind is the connection with efficiency. Traffic jams cause a lot of time and money loss. I read last year an interesting paper about efficiency on traffic roads (if I find it, I'll link it).
ReplyDeleteTo give a minor tip, you could maybe add some statistics next time. Such as, how many miles traffic jam are around Chicago every day? For me, rush hour in Chicago is totally unknown for me.
After all, I liked your explanation of opportunism and especially the structure and clearness of your story.