by Conor Friedersdorf

Long haul trucker Dave Carter remarks on it:

A few years back, I got caught in a nasty snow storm on I-84 in New York. A traffic accident, induced by icy roads shut down the west bound side of the interstate for several hours, leaving us all to sit there in the snow. Several of us truckers volunteered to let folks in passenger vehicles spend some time in our cabs and stay warm while we idled our engines so they wouldn’t have to decide between burning all the gas in their cars or freezing. For about five hours, we all made the best of it. But imagine a traffic jam that lasts weeks!!

My daughter alerted me to this story today on the phone, and our Diane Ellis sent the story to me this afternoon. What is currently a 60-mile backup near the Chinese capital of Beijing, stands every chance of lasting until mid-September. The reason? Road construction. Sound familiar? People caught in this colossal case of government subsidized constipation are moving along at, …get this… approximately one third of a mile per day. They should rip out their speedometers and replace them with calendars!