Commute/Travel Horror Stories

[Golyadkin]

I was coming home from UH one day, and was patiently waiting in the line of traffic merging from 59 south onto 610 north. A little teenage girl in an SUV pulled up next to me right before the lane merges off (I had been waiting in the line for 5-10 minutes at this point). She puts on her turn signal, and just merges in on me. Not in front of me: IN TO ME. I laid on my horn and she just kept coming. I was forced onto the shoulder and the person behind me was nice enough to let me back onto the road. When the lane finally merged with 610 she pulled into the lane next to me and as I drove passed her I saw her pointing and laughing at me.

I have never wanted to run into someone so much in my life.

3) Hurrican Rita, 2005. The traffic jam by which all future jams will be measured. I didn't sit in this one. I had a 100 year old brick warehouse in which to shelter, and so did not evacuate. But, I watched it. Some people waited in their cars for 8 hours and didn't even make it out of Harris County. This is the hurricane that convinced me to rebuild my garage with an upstairs gameroom. It has all the hurricane strapping and other things needed to help it withstand 120-130 mph winds. Though it is still not quite finished, it is at a stage that I can use it if needed. I'll never evacuate again.

At the time Rita hit, I was 17, so I was forced to evacuate by my panicky mother. It took us 19.5 hours to get to just north of Dallas to my great-uncle's house. Took more than 10 to get home.

I moved out before Ike hit, and moved into a bunker of a condo. Rode out Ike here. We didn't lose power, TV, anything.