The one little thing everyone should do

 I feel foolish complaining about this: roadside litter. 

Wars, famines, disease and storms may rage around the world, and I complain about litter? 

In my defense, I note that few wrongs in the world would be easier to fix, at least in the United States, than roadside litter. 

We know who causes litter, don't we? 

And it's not motorcyclists. But motorcyclists seem somehow closer to the bad effects. 

We're watching the road, closely, because we're running on two wheels. Many things can damage your automobile, but your car falling on its side and crashing after hitting something small on the road is pretty unlikely. 

It's also pretty unlikely that you'll be pulled over if you toss that Big Gulp cup out the window. Enforcement is almost nonexistent, and you know it. 

You know you can get away with littering. So why not do it? 

I'll tell you why: because one less empty Big Gulp cup inside your car is not going to make it any neater than it would be if you just tossed the cup in the garbage when you get home. 

And, if you do that, kids won't see you throwing garbage out the window and think, somehow, that if YOU do it, they can too. 

The guilty parties can fix the problem at no special cost to themselves. It's simple:

Just don't throw stuff out the window! 

There. I fixed it. 

When people let their emotions drive

 When real self-driving cars finally arrive they presumably will not offer driving modes for "Bully," "Road-Hog," "Tail Gate," "Revenge Honk," or "Grand Prix."

Human drivers, however, do operate in those modes, frequently. We know these anti-social outbursts when we see them.

And I see them a lot.

We live in Florida, but my wife and I have a tiny studio apartment above an alley in downtown Washington, D.C., so we can visit our kids, who live in D.C.

Being on an alley, the garbage trucks and delivery trucks arrive early and often. Luckily we are not light sleepers.

The alley is laid out in a "T" shape, with only the base of the "T" connecting to the street. The arms of the "T" are both dead-ends. The leg of the "T" is narrow, so narrow that only one vehicle at a time can use it. The arms of the alley are just barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass.

It's actually fun to watch the professional truck drivers wheel their massive vehicles through the tight spaces and around other vehicles. But, human nature being what it is, it is EVEN MORE fun to watch the occasionally inept driver try it.

I just thank goodness it isn't me at the wheel, as they struggle, edging backwards and forwards in the turn, denting fencing, and tearing off the occasional rain gutter in the process.

But the real fun comes when difficulty leads to frustration and confrontation.

One recent morning an incredibly long truck arrived, delivering an oversized but empty dumpster to a construction site on the alley. It squeezed in, but the ballet was only beginning.

The driver would have to drop the new, empty, dumpster in a corner of the alley, then maneuver and pick up the old, full-to-the-brim dumpster, move that to a different corner, return and pick up the empty dumpster, move it into position for use, then maneuver again to pick up the full dumpster and carry it away.

This was in progress when a lady in a new Mercedes pulled out of the condo garage in the alley and encountered the truck, nose-to-nose. She couldn't get past him. He couldn't get past her.

Things could have gone in a couple different ways. They went straight down hill.

The truck driver laid on his air horns and kept them blowing for a good long time. The sound might have been sufficient to blow away any ordinary driver, but not this lady. She backed up. Just a couple of feet; just a bit short of how far he would need to get by her.

The truck driver now dismounted and approached the Mercedes. The woman did not roll down her window to negotiate. No one would suggest she do so, but the effect of this was that the truck driver had to shout and gesture wildly in an attempt to communicate. He appeared to be insane. I assume, at this point, that the lady was dialing the police.

The truck driver now resorted to cyber threat. He got out his iPad and began photographing the Mercedes, an obvious threat to bring charges. The lady wasn't intimidated. The truck would just have to back up and let her by.

So the truck driver got into his cab and backed up. Just a couple of feet, but enough for her to squirt past him. Instead of turning down the leg of the "T" and being on her way, however, she remained in that arm of the "T," still effectively blocking the whole dumpster-shifting operetta.

I assume she was on the phone with police, seeking satisfaction. I guess the dispatcher finally explained that police getting around to solving a problem like hers would probably not be the day's top priority.

No sense waiting. She finally did get the Mercedes in gear and turn into the leg of the "T" to exit.

She didn't get far, however, because there was an SUV, inbound, waiting for the dumpsters to move so it could turn into the alley. SUV and Mercedes came nose to nose. Neither budged.

Eventually, the SUV driver relented and began slowly... slowly... slowly... backing up the leg of the "T" toward the street. And then, when he did reach the sidewalk, he carefully, ever so carefully and slowly, edged out into the street and then pulled alongside the curb cut -- blocking the alley exit so the Mercedes couldn't leave.

By now obviously enjoying himself, the SUV driver crawled forward on the street, eventually creating enough of an opening for the Mercedes to cross the sidewalk.

But now, with its front wheels on the street, the Mercedes came to stop. Sweet revenge! Now the SUV would not be able to reenter the alley.

Satisfied with her triumph, the lady did eventually drive away and the morning's drama was at an end.

Would any of these people care to see their behavior through my eyes? Do you see yourself any of this? I hate to admit it, but I know I am guilty on occasion.

Summer driving in Iceland will chill you

 Ah, summertime in Iceland. Pack your warm clothes on top. 

In Iceland in July we had several days of shirt-sleeve weather followed by days of icy breeze. This did nothing to diminish the awesome wonder of this land of fire and ice. 

Iceland: where glaciers sit atop volcanoes, ready to turn an eruption into a devastating instant flood. 

Iceland: where the rental car company gleefully emails you the route to visit the latest volcanic activity before advising that, after all, you should stay away. 

Especially with their car. 

Even if you survive, damaging it would be expensive, as many dangers are not covered by even the most comprehensive insurance. 

There are many ways you could damage your precious rental car in Iceland. 

Take the roads. Please.

Outside the one great capital city, Iceland's roads are narrow. Very narrow. Zero shoulders.

Instead of the hoped-for extra margin along the sides there is typically a steep drop into a ravine, if not over over a cliff into the sea.

The roads are one lane in each direction. Tour buses, ubiquitous, take up every inch of their lane, leaving YOU to provide the precious separation so important at a 100-mph approach speed.

Leave too much room and you'll put a wheel over the outside edge and head into the ravine.

Roads in Iceland lack shoulders. Run off the edge and you are a goner. Notice the lack of striping.

We actually saw a car in the ravine, clearly not put there intentionally. A driver was visible through the windshield. We about-faced and pulled up as close as we dared to offer help.

"The police are on the way," the calm woman at the wheel responded, waving us on. I admired her icy composure.

Now add a little more challenge. How about having a cloud form over that narrow road, slowing you down, but not the buses?

Now stir in some cold, to fog your windshield. Add rain.

Now add the sudden and total disappearance of any road striping at all! Stay in your lane, although you have no idea where it is. Opposing traffic might suddenly appear from around that next blind corner or over that rise in the road.

Now, for the final stroke: marbles. Sprinkle the road liberally with gravel. Big, loose stones that act as ball bearings.

In fact, replace the paving with gravel entirely. Your front-wheel-drive rental car now gets squirrelly, searching for traction, finding it first with one wheel, then the other. Only inches to spare, remember!

We did see motorcyclists and even bicyclists on these roads. It was a wonder that the cold and blasting wind didn't deter them from even mounting up. But they pressed on, making me feel like a real wimp for having heat and windshield wipers.

The one-lane, take-your-turn bridges are not a problem. Drivers politely wait their turn. But the one-lane, take-your-turn tunnels, miles in length, are sobering (there are turn-outs).

Iceland is expensive, true. But we never had a bad meal, accommodations were comfortable and Scandinavian efficient whether fancy or plain. Everyone, including other drivers, was gracious. Reserved, but friendly.

And, of course, and all important, everyone we spoke to spoke back in English. Iceland has a small population, but it's augmented by tourists and the foreign workers brought in to serve the tourists. Of necessity, foreign tongues are spoken, particularly English, from what I could gather.

Iceland: Scenery, yes.

Iceland: Fascinating museums about Vikings, the herring industry and Icelandic history, yes.

Iceland: Bubbling volcanic hot spots, yes.

Iceland: A relaxing dunk in an open-air bath heated by lava, yes.

Iceland: Despite the frequently cold temperatures and blasting winds, it's almost always sunny. In fact, the sun never really sets, in summer.

Iceland never gives up. It's said that the national saying is "Everything will work out." 

It certainly did for us. 

The Zipper Merge might speed traffic, but do you dare?

Traffic brakes hard as a would-be "zipper" waits too long to make his merge.

Tired of traffic? Me too. So I am frankly amused by the latest highway improvement scheme I've heard of: the "zipper merge."

It's being promoted in U.S. states where winter weather means nearly all road construction must be concentrated in the busy summer travel months. Construction means lots of lane closures, where traffic is forced into single file for miles on end.

We don't have winter weather woes in Florida. Even so, there's plenty of road construction.

And, if you think about it, there are fewer lanes at every freeway interchange, as the "merge" lane peters out and a line of fresh cars squeezes onto the through lanes.

Traffic engineers are now urging drivers to stay in the disappearing lanes until the very last moment, cutting over onto the through lanes only when they've run out of pavement (or come up against the final road construction barrier).

Once the driver reaches the point of having to merge or crash, he's supposed to "take turns" with the through traffic, proceeding one after another on the main route, without slowing down.

Think of "One from Column A" then "One from Column B."

Or think of the teeth of a zipper coming together as you pull it up. Smooth!

Engineers say that, on a two-lane road merging into a one-lane they can get 40 per cent more cars through using this zipper technique.

There is only one problem: road rage.

The traffic officials try to cast this as a problem of merging drivers slowing to try to enter traffic when there's plenty of empty lane still in front of them. They suggest that drivers are thinking it would just be impolite to sneak ahead of cars already on the through road.

My guess is that these "too polite" drivers suspect they'd better merge early — or face the consequences.

This is because drivers in the creeping traffic on the main line get angry as they watch the Johnny-Come-Latelys in the merge lane zipping ahead, passing a hundred or more cars at one jump.

Then, at the last moment you either have to let them in or risk triggering a crash. Pushy bastards!

Once, zipping up a merge lane myself, a fellow in a big pick-up truck pulled sideways across the lane in front of me to defend his place in line. I've seen this happen several times to others and I've never been sure whose side is right.

Now traffic officials in Midwestern states are posting videos trying to educate the public that it is not impolite to race ahead of cars stuck in the through lane — it's actually a technique that helps everybody.

I don't disagree. But I do smile at the idea that improving traffic flow could be a matter of changing human behavior.

It might be easier to change the concrete than to change minds.

Bottom line: there's too much traffic. Using the merge lanes as, in effect, traffic lanes, does make space for a small number of additional vehicles, true.

I suspect the only real improvement will come when more businesses realize it's silly to have employees drive to work to sit at computers all day when these same people could work from home at less cost to the firm.

The quickest, safest commute is one that doesn't happen at all.

Is a Royal Enfield up to the Going-to-the-Sun Road?

A motorcyclist crosses a waterfall of snow melt on the Going-to-the-Sun Road.

It's a road so great it inspired its own beer: Going to the Sun IPA by The Great Northern Brewing Company, Whitefish, Mont.

The beer is a very drinkable India pale ale. The Going-to-the-Sun Road is 50 miles of two-lane twisties across the Continental Divide inside Glacier National Park.

This year the National Park Service got enough snow out of the way to open the road in July. The road tops out at Logan Pass, 6,646 feet.

That's not high, compared to the Himalayas, but the danger here is avalanche, not altitude. Lives have been lost. One source notes that "there are few guardrails due to heavy snows and the resultant late winter avalanches that have repeatedly destroyed every protective barrier ever constructed."

Seen from far above, a motorcyclist makes his way up the road.

You may see mountain goats and bighorn sheep on the road. We saw a bear. And, not to my surprise, we saw many motorcyclists. They do love a challenge.

Would the Going-to-the-Sun Road be a suitable challenge for my Royal Enfield Bullet? It's pretty steep. I'd probably miss that 17-tooth front sprocket I gave up in favor of an 18. And in July, when we drove the Going-to-the-Sun Road, it was cold!

My motorcycle and I are truly best geared for riding in Florida.

I was happy to see the remaining snow (and the bear) from inside our rental car.

The beer was good, though.

Appropriate artwork on Going to the Sun IPA carton.

Royal Enfield takes on the Trashway

A Royal Enfield motorcycle in South Florida lives a life of stop-and-go driving 0n absolutely flat terrain. Only the occasional on-ramp or off-ramp offers an opportunity to swing through a curve with changing elevation.

To break that pattern, I went to the dump.

Yes, a former landfill dump in Davie, Florida, has been converted into a park, complete with roads curving along its sides. The dump is high enough to allow people to paraglide from the top, although I've never seen anyone doing it. Altitude sickness is not a problem: I figure the top is about 100 feet above sea level.
Still, it was fun to see, if only for a short distance, how the rest of the world lives. The speed limit on the landfill (called Vista View Park) is only 15 mph. But the police car in the parking lot didn't stay long and, after that, I had the park roads to myself. I didn't go fast; the road surfaces are gritty from lack of use.
And there are soft spots. When I stopped to take a picture at one point the center stand dug into the parking lot surface and didn't raise the bike an inch. I am happy to say that the dump smelled like a park, not a landfill.

Landfill dumps are common in Florida, particularly along Florida's Turnpike, which runs the length of the state.

It's natural to wonder if they one day could be linked together by landscaped roads. Sort of a Blue Ridge Trashway.