Not Anka’s.
Everyone gets stuck in traffic.
No matter where you live or how your profession affects your commute, everyone encounters some measure of road queue at some point in time. Whether you blame it on the sheer volume of vehicles on the road, the dire state of traffic management, human behavior, or even the weather, getting from Point A to Point B will always be the life-sucking ordeal prophesied by turn-of-the century doomsday soothsayers lamenting the fate of the horse-drawn carriage at the onset of the Industrial Age.
You may have come across studies showing that a significant percentage of our lives are lost, forever gone and never to be recovered again, due to traffic. We involuntarily commit three out of every sixteen hours that we are awake stuck in traffic on a daily basis – a fifth of our productive life. A fifth. That’s more time than history allotted for two World Wars, including the uneasy peace in between the two.
And still we attest to our sub-2-liter petrol burners in much the same way many of us would reply when asked what possession would compel us to rush into a burning house to rescue our most important possession – the TV set. Should it be 50+ inches of LCD or plasmatic goodness, the higher is our status in life, and the more ardent is our fervor to pluck it out of an infernal fate. It’s the same thing with cars.
How does this state of affairs play in light of today’s fuel prices and next week’s fateful arrival of the Expanded Value-Added Tax or the E-VAT? Sheer lunacy.
In the meantime, allow me to maneuver my erstwhile 35km/liter Piaggio Vespa PX-150E within the three feet or so of space conveniently left in between your stationary conveyances, as I head for the stoplight.
I might even work on World War Three in my spare time.
Article by Boo Blanco
Originally posted in TheVespaLife.Com
October 21, 2005
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