Monday, December 01, 1997
Market
Freeway
by Dan Coyle
([email protected])
I was sitting in traffic the other day (I'm from L.A., so that happens a lot), and I realized something completely frivolous, but sort of interesting. I imagined the freeway as a huge stock market.
There I was in my investment vehicle at a complete standstill. Some of the vehicles next to me were moving, and I wished I were in their lane. So I sold my position and someone moved in right behind me. In my new lane, I moved a little bit, but then I slowed down again, and the lane I had just left started moving again. How frustrating! I changed lanes again, only to be frustrated again. I sure didn't pick my lanes very well. I realized that changing lanes a lot actually slowed me down because I lost speed every time I changed.
I noticed all the people in the carpool lane were whizzing along. They slowed down every once in a while, but for the most part they kept moving -- and pretty rapidly. I realized it's because they can't change lanes and they can't exit. They've chosen that lane because they know they're not going to need to get out for a long time. I noticed something else about the people in the carpool lane: they didn't seem to care what everyone else was doing. They checked the Freeway Condition signs (if you don't know what I'm talking about, go rent L.A. Story with Steve Martin) and traffic reports, but they stayed their course. They were just chatting with each other or listening to music. I remembered what Warren Buffett says: "You are neither right nor wrong just because everyone else agrees with you." The carpoolers don't really care what the rest of the freeway does; they just go about their business of moving along.
I passed a police car with the slogan "Serving Every Commuter" on it. It was trailing someone who was going very fast. It turns out the speeder was driving on the inside shoulder, and that's not allowed on the freeway.
Suddenly, there was a crash! It was so bad that driving was halted for a short time until they cleaned it all up. The carpool lane was unaffected. A lot of people were hurt; others were even scared to drive on the freeway again. For some people, that meant they could get in new vehicles and go even faster than they did before. After a while, of course, the freeway became quite congested again.
I decided the next day I was definitely going to carpool. It's funny how everyone can see the carpoolers and how much faster they go, but there are still so few of them. Most drivers insist on trying to beat the traffic by changing lanes a lot. It doesn't make sense to me. I'd rather listen to music.
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