Traffic

First off, a bit of housekeeping.  Friday link will come on Saturday.  It is what it is.

Many people know I started in Minneapolis/St.Paul reporting traffic.  I moved back to Minneapolis in 2000 from Ames, Iowa and landed at Metro Traffic.  I started there as a part time employee and became the Assistant Director of Operations in 2003.  I stayed there until 2006, even flying around as an airborne reporter, and I did an extended fill in stint on the Fox 9 Morning News a few years back.

In my opinion, traffic is very necessary, but I also believe agricultural broadcasting is still important.  I only think around 10% of any given metro listens to traffic, and when they hear of a delay on their regular route, know the metro well enough to jump on a secondary road or back street to get around it.  Ten percent might not seem like a lot, but if that 10% did continue down their regular path during backups, traffic in the metro would be horrible, far worse than it is right now.  I also think radio traffic trumps any vehicles navigational device's traffic.  How safe is it in stop and go traffic to be looking at a screen?

Traffic reporting is very repetitive.  I was starting to lose my mind some mornings when it was all the same thing all the time.  There were a few reasons I left Metro; that was one of them.

Another reason was something I was reminded of today.  You become de-sensitized to death when you see it on camera with any regularity.  I remember my first death while reporting.  94 at Hemlock, motorcycle accident, and without getting into the details, it was clear the rider was dead.  The guys who operate the cameras will usually shut them off in cases like that, but they couldn't react fast enough before I, and anyone else watching, got a big eyeful.

This was a human being.  He was going someplace, doing something.  He had priorities for the day.  He had loved ones who were waiting to see him.  His favorite show was on the DVR waiting to be watched, there was the garden he was working on, there was the fishing trip with his father he had planned for the next month, there was the fantasy football league he couldn't wait to begin, there were children he and his wife were going to have.  Done, finished.  It was something I saw play out over and over and over again during my tenure.

Craig Stevens is a friend of mine from back at Metro (an excellent broadcaster himself).  He and I used to try to imagine the astronomical parameters it took for someone to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.   Just making the traffic light, or not.  Forgetting something in their house and going back for it.  Waking up on time or waking up late that day because the power was out.  The slightest variance of the gas pedal 20 miles earlier which allowed them to move ahead of one car, stay behind another, catch a stretch of open road and accelerate, or come across a disabled vehicle and have to wait an additional five minutes.  And then factor all of the same equations for all of the other people involved.  The cosmic alignment needed for an accident to happen is astounding and humbling.

In September 2005, I remember an accident with injuries and, mentally, not really acknowledging the seriousness of the accident.  Reporting it all the time had made me numb to the suffering.  I found out two day slater that same accident had claimed the life of a friend's sister.  I was jolted back into reality.  It was time for me to move on.

My kids and I had a wonderful time at the Minnesota History Museum today.  We saw the Toys exhibit (it's fantastic) and had lunch (my youngest had to wait an additional ten minutes for cheese pizza, which she then had to wait another ten minutes for it to cool down).  We left the museum, got onto 94, and started driving back to our house from St. Paul, giggling and laughing at the exhibits we'd seen and how old their dad was.

Right before the 280 exit, there was an accident.  It happened less than a minute before we had gotten there and less than 1/10th of a mile ahead of us.  It involved a motorcycle.  It was not good.  I was trying to see if I needed to get out.  I was trained as the emergency medic in the military (if the real medics were killed in the line of duty, I would take over) and it had helped me numerous times in civilian life.  I could tell it was a bad accident, and already ten or so cars had pulled over to try to help.  I called 911 and began to merge over to the far right lane to get by.  I told the now silent kids to look out the passenger side windows until we got past.  A semi and a few other good samaritans had stopped their vehicles to block the carnage from view, but you saw enough.  Broken glass, twited metal, shards of plastic...and red.  We drove past.  I told the kids they could look forward again and we quietly sped home.

I report the traffic in the morning.  It's important.  Driving is not just about your commute.

I'll never forget how fragile and important life is.