Today I had a chance to witness firsthand what the real problem is with traffic on our freeways. It is not the lack of lanes, nor the lack of money for new roads, nor the lack of toll roads – it is the drivers.

This story could take place on any freeway in the Puget Sound on almost any day, but this particular story takes place on the I-90 westbound heading onto the 405 north. Due to “unknown” reasons, it took me more than an hour to go two miles. It was not the rain, nor the snow mix, nor the hour, as it was already almost 6:30 p.m., but rather the actors in this play that caused this incredible jam.

There were two sides in this game, one side was the “stay on the freeway because that is the right thing to do” and the other side were the “we are smarter than you and are in more of a hurry so we will cheat” group.

The “cheaters” came in two sub groups: the bold ones exited off the freeway on 150th, only to sneak right back on – ahead of the traffic – and the less bold ones traveled as far in the left lanes as they could before forcing their way into the right lane, thus messing up flow for all the lanes both by holding up the lane they were in and slowing down those in the right hand lane that were trying to follow the rules.

But then the rule followers kind of decided as a group effort not to let the “cheaters” in, further gumming up the traffic since the “cheaters” just decided to push even farther forward till someone would let them in. This led to three separate rows of cars fighting for one lane. Or, in other words, a complete standstill.

Now I could put on my “better than you” hat and say that the other two groups were in the wrong and if they just followed the rules, we would have avoided all this mess, but someone on the other side would say that I was the dummy because I could have done just what they did.

It is not illegal to use the off-ramp from 150th Street to get back on using the access road, but it sure does seem unfair. (It probably depends on who the observer is, I guess). If I were in charge, I would make people exit onto 150th. But would that really fix anything? No, there would still be some other way to “cheat” the system.

And what of us sanctimonious ones that stayed on the freeway and followed rules that do not exist, who then took offense to those who drove past us in the other lane only to cut in front of us? Well, some of us held steadfast and would not let them in.

But how many of those people were really cheating? How many did not realize that the right lane was stopped until they had passed the back of the line? How many were in a real hurry to see their kids school play or see a sick relative? I do not think any of the actors in tonight’s play should really feel good about their actions, but I cannot help but chuckle when I think of all those people who “cheated” to avoid the traffic mess only to find that the reason for this mess were the ones before them who were doing the exact same thing as they were!

Of course, the same argument could be made that if those on the road just stopped and let 15-20 “cheaters” in at a time, that we could have also avoided the mess. There would have been no traffic jam tonight if people did not put themselves and their personal desires above everyone else’s.

Perhaps when I think about it with a cooler head, this story is about more than just a long evening stuck in traffic, perhaps it is one of the fundamental problems that we as a society are struggling with on a daily basis. Every 2-year-old knows the meaning of fair when it benefits them, but very few of us, at any age, understand the meaning of fair when it benefits others.

Tom Ellis, Kirkland