We spent eleven hours on the road today for what should have been a six-and-a-half-hour trip. It could be argued that a snowstorm that dropped two to three inches of snow on South Carolina, a state that is not used to that kind of weather, could be the blame for the length of the trip. Actually, the state actually did a pretty decent job of snow removal and road treatment for novices especially on I-95.

The real cause of the several long stretches of bumper to bumper traffic and long periods of non-movement is you. Granted some areas, especially right outside Florence, and in those areas, that are heavily shaded, the roads were partially snow-covered and had packed snow that was essentially ice in the left lane. You would think that would be a clue to slow down a bit and travel thirty to forty miles per hour in the right lane like the rest of us. Oh no. You are in a hurry to deliver your cargo. Time is money.

The problem is that five or six of you lost control and jack-knifed slowing or stopping traffic and your fellow truckers as well. The result is that not only did your cargo not make it to its destination, a bunch of your colleagues were severely late with theirs as well. Not to mention that a couple of you may have been hurt. One carcass of a tractor-trailer by the side of the road was completely disintegrated. Its hard to imagine that the driver escaped without injury of some kind.

Common sense would suggest that getting your cargo to its destination, even if a couple of hours later, is preferable to not delivering it at all, or worse, getting killed or killing someone else.  I am quite sure that this message is spitting into the wind. If one of you thinks about this message and slows down in these situations, maybe it will help. I will retire now. The vision is a little blurred a bit having spent five unnecessary hours on the road. Oh well.