Travel: Traffic jam when returning from vacation – Travel

There’s an old supermarket rule that’s backed neither by studies nor statistics, but by pure experience: Never stand in line at the checkout where a young man is sitting, leisurely pulling the groceries over the scanner. This is definitely the line with the longest wait. Join the supermarket heroines, the middle-aged women who have no time to waste but at the same time keep their nerve in every situation. While the young man at the checkout next door is desperately trying to check the price of the cream cheese that was on sale the day before yesterday.

Unfortunately, things aren’t quite as simple in traffic as they are in the supermarket. And there is only one constant in traffic jams on the motorway, when clearing at the border or at the toll booth: you always feel like you are in the wrong lane, because the cars on the left and right move much faster. The law of inertia. Just cheese.

Recently, for example, on the border between Romania and Hungary, in the middle of holiday traffic: just five kilometers from the control station you are rudely torn from your holiday peace, because a column of monster trucks occupies the right lane, apparently caught in an endless loop, some death-defying truck drivers. Drivers stretch their legs on the road shortly before the border. You would like to do a little gymnastics yourself, but it’s too late for that – the end point of the flowing traffic is already up ahead, that spot marked in red on the app, which is a horror for every person with the urge to move. You just want to go from one EU country to another EU country; your ID cards are ready to hand in the glove compartment. And now you’re in the summer traffic jam, despite the six lanes on which the misery is spread.

You never know how aggressively other drivers will defend their position

Drivers with a low tolerance for frustration now immediately begin to calculate, they weigh things up in a flash: Isn’t the fastest way to go on the outside lane, similar to the ski lift, where the really bold ones squeeze into the queue from the sharp left or right? On the other hand, this is a risky procedure because you never know how aggressively other drivers in line will defend their position. The track in the middle, which was chosen as a solid compromise solution, turns out to be a total disaster, a dead end.

And then the passenger speaks up, slightly sleepy, but still with a certain sharpness: “Why are you standing there again, where nothing is happening?” Despite the standstill, the driver’s pulse is now rising and he wants to start the classic maneuver of all traffic jam sufferers: the spontaneous lane change. Actionism against frustration, at least by doing so you demonstrate the ability to act, even though you have already experienced a hundred times how pointless this attempt is. Ha, the person next to you wasn’t paying attention for a second – and you’re already in the row that was just ahead. But even in the new lane you immediately get stuck while all the other cars roll very slowly towards the border.

“It worked really well,” commented the passenger. She sounds sarcastic now, but maybe she just needs to go to the bathroom. “The last will be first,” you reply limply. The border guards up front also seem to be taking a nap or are simply doing their job very meticulously. In any case, you yourself are completely off track. And no dynamic supermarket heroine in sight to take you forward.