HOV Lane, No Thanks…

We need “screaming child” lanes instead. Oh my goodness, after two trying days in Niagara Falls, we headed home on Tuesday afternoon. Allison had slept for 13 hours the previous night so we figured that she might be crabby but she should be fairly content on our eight-hour journey home from the falls. Boy were we wrong!

Right about the time we hit Cleveland (about 3 hours into our drive) Allison started screaming. Not just fussing a little, full-on throwing a fit screaming. I tried in vain to calm her down with toys, pacifiers, water, crackers and cereal. She wouldn’t have any of it, she wanted out of the car at that very moment. Unfortunately we were dead stopped in rush hour traffic. That’s when it hit me, car pool lanes are not the best solution instead we need lanes specifically for parents with screaming children in the cars. Seriously I think it would significantly cut down the number of road rage incidents. Have you ever sat in stop and go traffic with a screaming toddler? It’s enough to make Mother Theresa stress out.

As if sitting in traffic is not bad enough imagine the high pitched screams of your child being multiplied ten fold because you don’t even have the benefit of “road noise” to help mitigate it. You may as well be trapped in a tiny closet with your screaming child’s voice echoing off each and every wall.

To top off the adventure, we seemed to be surrounded by morons who somehow thought they were above sitting in traffic. You know the type, the ones who drive along all the stopped traffic only to inch their way in right before the off ramp. I hate those people and when Allison is screaming it makes me absolutely livid. We discovered I was not the only one frustrated with it, after about four cars and one 18-wheeler who did it the semi that was two cars behind us moved over ever so slightly to block the lane next to us and prevent the morons from cutting over in front of the rest of us.

We sat in traffic for 45 minutes with Allison screaming. Once we finally started moving she was happy as a clam … for about 15 minutes and then the screaming stared again!