my worst traffic jam- heading up north for deer season this year on Hwy 94 west ( minnesota ) and the tunnel in Minneapolis was blocked off because a semi tipped over on top of a car. it was backed up for 2 miles, and the accident occured 7HOURS EARLIER. so i waited it out.... i played the heaviest rock cd's i owned and just rocked out at the top of my lungs.... everyone must have thought i was NUTS!!! needless to say they let me in front of them once the traffic got moving!!!

the year before, 20 miles north of this mentioned traffic jam some guy just kept cutting me off.... no reason just being a jacka$$ well, i was going up north so naturally i had my .45 in the truck... i wouldnt have used it in any way other than to end any road rage he might have in mind. so i cut him off at 75, and SLAMMED on my breaks cutting speed down to about 35, he went next to me and i gave him a piece of my mind.... he was pretty polite after that.

the year before that-- i got stuck in a traffic jam that got started by a house ( yes, the house started a traffic jam ) a moving company was pulling a modular home onto some property up north on Hwy 64 near Nevis MN when their truck got stuck, leaving the whole house blocking the road... the ditch was too steep to drive though so everyone had to take an alternate route

 

Every day it snows people forget how to drive. The last triffic i was in was today on my to work took me 1 hour to drive what normally takes me 10 min.

 

Traffic jams are fairly common where I spend my days in the truck. You haven't lived till you get to Chicago at 7:00AM After a while you work around it. Go early and get out of there before it gets bad. The one that I do remember was 3 years ago when we drove to NYC to see our daughter and son in law. Came out of the the tunnel in midtown and stopped. If I remember it took about 1 1/2 hours to go about 7-10 blocks. There was construction going on and they were trying to get concrete trucks into and out of the right lane where their were pumping the ready mix up into a tall building. I can't believe how long we sat still going no where. I envy you NYC drivers and how you put up with that on a daily basis.

 

About 5 years ago I was east on I-10 headed to Gulfport, Mississippi. If you’ve ever traveled that highway you’ll know there are several stretches of road that are actually bridges that go on for miles and miles. Well, it seems a car had a front-tire-blow-out at around 75 MPH. It appears they banged the guardrails on both sides of the highway several times before rolling a few times. As this car was doing its break dance, the semi that was following it locked’em up, jackknifed, then flipped up on its side completely blocking both lanes as well as the little bit of shoulder on each side. Amazingly, nobody was seriously hurt so I heard. Unfortunately, it was about 4:30 PM, rush hour when all this happened. So things bottlenecked very rapidly behind the accident, not being able to go around or even turn around. And of course things got so packed up (thanks to the idiots who were gonna be smart and use the shoulder/emergency lanes) that rescue and wrecker vehicles could not reach the scene from the back…they had to come in from the front…which was entirely the wrong angle to try and get the semi out of the way.
Anyway, 4 ½ hours later they literally drug the semi tractor over to one side enough for traffic to go around. I was about ½ mile behind the accident so it didn’t take too long for me to get through. Later that evening sitting in my hotel room the 10’oclock news said traffic was backed up for almost 20 miles.
What did I do for 4 ½ hours? Fretted, fumed, finished reading Clear and Present Danger, swapped my wiper blades (happened to have a set), wished I had a fishing pole and some bait (remember, we were on a bridge), and had a most delightful conversation with a young (man, he looked about 12) soldier and his wife headed off to their first duty station. I had been in the AF about 19 years by that time so I had a ton of “wisdom” to lay on’em.
In a situation like that getting PO’d only seems to make things worse. I know it’s hard to do but just try and chill…time will seem to go by a little quicker.

 

In 1998 I went to the daytona 500 and it was about 2 hours to get out of the parking lot and about 5 hours on the highway, but it was woth it.