Rant for the day -- road warriors

About a month ago I started a new job.  The people are pretty laid-back, which is good.  The work isn't bad, aside from some issues related to the sheer complexity of the organization (though those are getting maddening).  The commuting is godawful.

I'd been trying to get something closer to where I live, but frankly I wasn't in a position to be choosy.  So I was prepared for a fair bit of wasted time.  I wasn't prepared for the sheer stupidity of some drivers.

There are apparently people to whom driving is a grimly-urgent game whose object is to be ahead of, rather than behind, as many other cars as possible.  People jump from lane to lane through dangerously-small gaps trying to get in front of each other, tailgate, honk furiously in frustration when a move in the game fails, speed up to cut off people properly signaling a lane change or trying to merge onto the freeway, and vroom off with an aggressively flatulent-sounding burst of acceleration when a gap in one lane offers a chance to get a few spots ahead.

And usually that's all that's at stake -- a chance to get one or two car-positions further ahead than they would otherwise be.  You're driving up your blood pressure and stress hormones, and everyone else's, for the sake of an advantage of a few seconds.  What on Earth is the point?  It's as if people feel that getting in front of another car rather than behind it is a test of their manhood.  I can't help thinking of those primate intimidation displays to assert dominance which find echoes in so much of human behavior.

I've already changed my route to avoid the freeway and use regular streets only, even though it takes longer, but I've seen similar behavior there as well during rush hour -- despite the presence of plenty of pedestrians and bicyclists (many of them apparently eager to gamble their lives on drivers' reflexes) and a tangle of construction constricting one major road for most of its length.  The advantage is that a crash there would happen at lower speed than on the freeway and thus be less likely to be deadly.

Don't get me wrong -- it's only a small fraction of drivers who behave this way, maybe one to five percent.  But that's quite enough.  I've seen the aftermath of some spectacular car wrecks in Portland during the time I've lived here, including one that must have been as bad as the picture at the top, and I'm no longer surprised.  Not that I mind the idea of such idiots killing themselves off -- that's just natural selection in action.  But they almost inevitably take other people with them.

I can't swear to it, but, I think it's getting worse.  I've lived here 23 years now and I don't remember it being this bad earlier on.

The daily drive also takes me deep into the northwestern quadrant of downtown, an area I've never been to before.  NW 23rd Avenue has, or had, a reputation for being a classy shopping street, and maybe it is.  My commute doesn't actually take me there, but I have to go through most of the area of the northwestern downtown between NW 23rd and the river.  And it looks like absolute crap, or at least the part I drive through does.  The buildings are OK -- the usual blocky fortresses five to twenty stories high -- but they're separated by huge expanses of parking lots and fenced-off vacant lots choked with undergrowth.  Small encampments of homeless people are scattered everywhere, though many have new-looking camping-style tents -- I wonder if someone donated a bunch of those recently?  An elevated freeway and bridge approach looms over everything like some colossal alien megastructure.  Surely something could be done with all those vacant lots literally within walking distance of the city center.  Put in affordable housing (the Devil knows we need more of that).  Something.  As it is, the area doesn't look dangerous, at least in the daytime.  But it looks depressing as hell.

Ah, well.  This job is a five-month gig.  One month down, four to go.