Spring Break
New Jersey: The armpit of America
Mike Spangenberg/Weekly Columnist
Issue date: 4/11/02 Section: Commentary
Because the Turnpike appeared that it was going to function way too efficiently in its original plans, a group of dedicated engineers came up with an idea known today simply as, "The Merge," whereby a full 17 lanes of high-speed traffic on the Turnpike merge into just one lane in a matter of eight yards. To the joy of the highway planners, this configuration manages to back up traffic for miles on even the slowest of traffic days.
For some reason that may be related to the viscosity of the pavement in New Jersey, tractor-trailers seem to roll over an awful lot on this particular road. Nearly anytime you drive through the state, a traffic advisory will advise you that there is an overturned tractor trailer at exit 8A, just after the merge, which has backed traffic up for the better part of next week. As you sit in your car waiting for things to clear up, you may very well see several tractor-trailers blowing past you like tumbleweeds in the wind.
After you exit the highway, the roads unfortunately do not get any better. The good folks of New Jersey have come up with something called a "jug handle" (I am not making this up) whereby you must make a RIGHT-hand turn just BEFORE you wish to make a left-hand turn. You then swing back around 180 degrees and cut back across the road from which you have just come. "But wait," you observe, "that would mean that you would have to know where you were turning left long before you actually needed to turn." This is absolutely correct, and it is the reason why no one who is not from New Jersey can ever find a damn thing that is not directly off of the highway or on the strip.
Besides outlawing the left-hand turn, the state of New Jersey has also made it illegal to pump your own gas. The result of this is that the state is creating an entire generation of young people who cannot pump gas and must be taught how to do so when they go away to college in Connecticut. I once saw a girl with Jersey plates on her car waiting at a self-service pump for someone to come and help her for forty-five minutes. True story. (No it isn't.)
For some reason that may be related to the viscosity of the pavement in New Jersey, tractor-trailers seem to roll over an awful lot on this particular road. Nearly anytime you drive through the state, a traffic advisory will advise you that there is an overturned tractor trailer at exit 8A, just after the merge, which has backed traffic up for the better part of next week. As you sit in your car waiting for things to clear up, you may very well see several tractor-trailers blowing past you like tumbleweeds in the wind.
After you exit the highway, the roads unfortunately do not get any better. The good folks of New Jersey have come up with something called a "jug handle" (I am not making this up) whereby you must make a RIGHT-hand turn just BEFORE you wish to make a left-hand turn. You then swing back around 180 degrees and cut back across the road from which you have just come. "But wait," you observe, "that would mean that you would have to know where you were turning left long before you actually needed to turn." This is absolutely correct, and it is the reason why no one who is not from New Jersey can ever find a damn thing that is not directly off of the highway or on the strip.
Besides outlawing the left-hand turn, the state of New Jersey has also made it illegal to pump your own gas. The result of this is that the state is creating an entire generation of young people who cannot pump gas and must be taught how to do so when they go away to college in Connecticut. I once saw a girl with Jersey plates on her car waiting at a self-service pump for someone to come and help her for forty-five minutes. True story. (No it isn't.)