My commute to and from work is roughly 40 minutes each way. I go against the rush hour traffic and most of the drive is freeway. There usually isn’t much stop and go traffic so it is relatively easy. But you do get to spend 40 minutes to think about a lot of things. Over that last 15 years of commuting you realize that by driving in the fast lane you might get there 3-4 minutes earlier, you are stressed out to a high degree and you burn more fuel. By just staying in the slow lane you arrive much more relaxed. But there are limits on how slow one goes. Sometimes you have to pass the guy going 80 kmh and then get back in the slow lane. My ritual is pretty simple and it works. Stay in the slow lane, make phone calls if you have to (with the built in hands free unit) listen to the radio, mostly news and maybe the sports radio chanel until the commercials start, and the rest of the time listen to music from the iPod. The iPod also has podcasts on it. I will listen to those if I get stuck in a long line up. And that is the key. Once you start listening to something pretty good, that you have been saving to listen to, you won’t mind the line up. You listen intently and watch the cars in the other lane go by and it really doesn’t matter. You’ll end up a little late but you have used the time to do something you wanted to. I can’t say I look to the line-up at rush hour, it is just they don’t have that big a negative effect anymore.
Tinfoiling 