I see dummies. They're everywhere.

So this past Friday I'm driving home from work on a stretch of highway that is notorious for its traffic during the summer. The reasons for the traffic are numerous, sometimes it's construction (mowing the grass falls into this category), sometimes it's an accident, part of it is the fact that it's simply too few lanes for too many cars and that's just the way it goes.

So I've gotten on the highway and am driving along when the cars ahead of me slow down to a crawl. I figure it's just another example of standard pre-weekend traffic and settle down for the slow going. Less than a mile up ahead I come to the source of the slowdown. An older white car, a Toyota Supra if memory serves, has pulled off to the side of the road. The passenger door is open and it appears someone is sitting there, perhaps on a cell phone calling AAA for a tow or boost. No accident, just people slowing down apparently because the novelty of a car on the shoulder of the road is too much for them to resist passing at anything faster than fifteen miles an hour.

You'd think the story would end there, wouldn't you? I mean, a few rubberneckers had slowed down traffic for a half mile or so, what's the big deal? No, the interesting thing was what was happening on the other side of the highway, the southbound side. You see, as intriguing as this car on the shoulder of the road was for people in the northbound lane, the drivers in the southbound lane just couldn't get enough of it. They had traffic backed up for miles. As I continued on the northbound lane I passed East Lyme, then the 395 cut-off and traffic was almost at a standstill. I continued on through Waterford and got to the New London bridge where the poor bastards crossing it at 75 mph had no idea what was in store for them just on the other side. Incredible. A 10-mile standstill on Friday afternoon was caused by people looking at a single broken down car on the other side of the highway.

People, if the car is not on fire, please, just keep driving.