There’s a very good saying we should all remember in coming weeks when our population triples and our roads become clogged with holiday-makers: “Angry makes you stupid.”
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Certainly, aggressive driving prompted by frustration in traffic can make you do stupid things. These include tailgating, speeding, overtaking when unsafe and cutting off other drivers.
And all of these can have deadly consequences, especially when the roads are full of visitors who might not be familiar with the area.
Another good thing to remember when frustration builds in slow traffic is that you – yes, you – are part of the congestion in which you are caught. Raging against it won’t help, accepting it probably will.
Complaining won’t help either. All those vehicles ahead of and behind you are bringing money to the region. Instead of bitching about all those vehicles towing boats and caravans, try remembering every one of them is helping either directly or indirectly to keep locals employed.
If their experience is good, they’ll return and most likely tell others to make the trip.
Sure, the traffic is an inconvenience but it’s a small price to pay for the upkeep of local economies.
This holiday season, we will see some interim measures to manage the traffic. The Jervis Bay turn-off will see a temporary reduction to the speed limit, which will hopefully make it safer and easier to negotiate.
Shoalhaven Mayor Amanda Findley has written to the RMS requesting that temporary traffic controls also be installed during the holiday season. This might just break up the infuriating gridlock on this key intersection.
Unfortunately, though, the bottleneck that used to jam up Berry will now shift to Nowra. While road on the Berry-Bomaderry highway upgrade will be suspended through the holidays, the going will still be slow.
And in Nowra itself, there will be days when the highway and some of the local rat runs become virtual car parks. Canny locals have learned to time their trips to avoid the worst of it. That Live Traffic app is very useful when it comes to deciding when to travel and when not to.
The reality, however, is every one of us will be caught in traffic at some stage. Patienceand calm will help us survive. Impatience and anger will only make it worse.