Getting2Work

Thursday commute ended up on an annoying note!

With a 4/10 schedule, my Thursday is like others’ Friday.  So I was really ready to mentally wind down.  Morning commute was pretty uneventful.  The work day was going along it’s usual pace … trying to get things done … ran into problems … solved problems (myself and/or with others) … and the cycle goes on.  Since I was not planning on going into work today, I stayed a little longer than usual to get things going and send out emails so other team members can continue on tomorrow so we won’t lose as much time.

Since I left late, I expected to run into more traffic.  I reminded myself not to get anxious of the time.  After all it was the end of the work week for me.  Sure enough, there were more spots where traffic slowed, and the LAX dead stop started way before we actually got to LAX.  But no problem, I was mentally prepared and I have my audio books that I subscribe to at Freebooks.com (see it on my list of “Commuters’ Boredom Busters”).  After we reached to persistent slow stretch, I called my daughter to relay the message to rest of the family not to be alarmed that I was getting home late.

It was getting dark half way through the Sepulveda Pass.  I had to join the rest of the commuters and turned my head lights on.  That’s one of the reasons why I might go back to driving 5 days.  I don’t think I want to drive both ways in the dark.  It just has this negative psychological effort on me!

It had been a long day and I was feeling it.  After 2 hours on the freeway, I finally reached my exit and got off the freeway.  It’s either the change of speed or knowing that I was almost home gave me a feeling as if a heavy load was lifted off my shoulders. But I still had a stretch on the surface road before actually reaching home.

Somewhere on one of the surface roads, a big pick up was waiting to turn left onto the road.  This was one of the samll streets and there was one car in front of me close by.  The pick up thought it had time to pull out in front of the car ahead of me.  But instead of going straight,  the car in front of me moved over for a left turn.  The pick up couldn’t make it and stopped in our right lane.  But It did managed to stop in time without hitting the car that was ahead of me.  Unfortunately instead of waiting till I passed, he decided to make the rest of his left turn in front of me.  I can understand that sitting in lane is not a good thing for him.  But there is no one else coming and it’s wasn’t like I had stopped in the middle of my lane either.  I hadn’t expected him to go.  I had to brake hard and pulled right to avoid it.  I swear it was just like in the movie as I watched the side of the pick up zooming up to me.  I just missed the left tail corner of his pick up.  I was very lucky that there were no other cars to my right or close behind.

My heart was pounding.  Good thing I only had a few more blocks to go and the rest of the way traffic was light and uneventful.  Freeway driving can be bad, but I swear surface road can be as bad if not worse.