The summer travel season is upon us. From now until Labour Day, Friday afternoons will be the time the traffic is the heaviest. People may be even more stressed on Fridays than Mondays (difficult to imagine during the winter).
Congestion on the highway out of town are common place in summer weekends. Often people are anxious to get to their destination quickly and may become stressful when traffic goes to a standstill. There may even be people who are more stressed after they leave work on Friday than any other time during the work week. The best way to relieve this kind of stress may be to remember why they are on the road in the first place (one answer is, of course, to escape the city and the stress in it). After all, getting stressed out over traffic won't make it disappear. It is kind of ironic that people get stressed out on their way to a place where they can relax and unwind.
With so many cars hitting the pavement, there will be people who try to get out of town as fast as their cars allow. The police know about this, so they often set up traffic sting operations on long weekends, as more people go out of the cities and to the wilderness (well, not quite).
While driving on the highway, there are times when all the cars slow down when the traffic report indicates that there is no accident or congestion in the area. It turns out that the cars are slowing down because there is a police officer holding a radar gun towards their vehicles. In truth, the only people who are caught are those who never look at the road ahead or those who think they are on the Autobaun. Others just slow down when they see a police officer and hit the gas pedal after they drive past the officer. This defeats the purpose of setting up a speed trap in the first place.
One way for the police to regain the upper hand is to park the police cruiser at some spot on the highway, then have a police officer set up the camera further down the road (say 500 metres). This way motorists will still slow down when they see the parked cruiser, but some of them will think that they have driven past the speed trap under the speed limit and hit the accelerator hard. What they don't realize is that the real trap still lies ahead and many would be caught speeding.
Not all people flee the city when the clock strikes 5 PM on Friday (or earlier). Some choose to stay in the city they live in for the weekend. Many cities have plenty of options for people to spend time and money during the weekend.
Today many cities have campaigns to promote themselves to their citizens. The goal is clear — ask the residents to spend their money around their backyard. It is also cheaper to promote tourism to people within the city than to those living out of town (at least that's what I think).
Many people choose to spend their weekends at home (their home city, not their homes). Some choose to do so because there are many things to do and places to see. For others it may be due to cost. With today's high gas prices, many may be staying home because they can't afford to have a road trip. (Yes, I realize that most cars have better fuel economy on the highway than in the city, but one has to eventually drive in the city on any road trip. It won't be too exciting a road trip if all you do is drive on a highway non-stop.)
Whatever you do on your weekends, enjoy yourselves. After all, most of us have to go back to work on Monday.