TraffEQ

So one fine day the Chief was driving us to Cineleisure (no, still not used to calling it E-At-The-Curve yet) for a movie, and we were coming from somewhere in PJ sometime in the evening...meaning there's the usual traffic snarl. Just so happens, this one time the Chief decides to use the route that we normally take head to Cineleisure, and as it was, our route was a tad jammed up too.

Not too bad by our standards, as we find that we can usually breeze past the initial clog, but what we noted was that both of us had a different route of choice at most points. In our case, it's from Federal Highway, making our way towards Jalan University and cutting across to Section 17 via the junction just before Jaya One. Coming out at the Shell station on the Sprint Highway, we then head into TTDI and up Jalan Datuk Sulaiman and into Mutiara Damansara.

Chief usually takes alternatively the Section 16 way coming out towards Eastin Hotel, heads straight all the way to the junction where Jalan Damansara meets the LDP. From there it's all the way towards 1 Utama and to Cineleisure.

For us, we prefer moving with occasional stops. At least there's a sense of movement.

The Chief prefers a more efficient time-saving route. Which meant going through the hellish bit of traffic where the Jalan Damansara meets LDP and gets congested, where one ends up waiting for at least three cycles of traffic light changes before getting past. But according to the Chief, it's smooth sailing from there on without any more traffic lights until we reach Cineleisure.

Taking our route the Chief suffered with each traffic stop while in TTDI (short tho' the stops were whatwith few cars and smart lights) and one slightly long one at Burhanuddin Helmi. And another slight wait once we reach the junction before Tesco. Each stop we were treated to a look of suffering and a reminder of the time.

And just recently we tried taking the Chief's route...and raged nonstop in the car as we crawled ever so slowly towards the traffic lights at Jalan Damansara/LDP. Even soothing music did not help calm us down as we were, well, rushing to make it to Citibank to drop our cheque before 4pm (and mind you it was already 3.45pm when we got stuck in that snarl). Impatience coupled with a bit of aggressive driving helped make sure that no stray cars decide to cut into our lane and slow us down, and by stroke of luck we managed to get to Citibank by just past 4pm and hand in our cheque to the officer who was collecting the cheques from the machine at that moment.

Since we handed it straight to the officer and were not able to slot it in the machine first, we didn't get a receipt. If we did slot it in the machine, then they would have recorded it as a late payment. Oh well better no receipt than pay late charges.

Still, somehow we don't figure the stress from all that traffic is worth it!

Oh, and probably one day both the Chief and us will put to the test which way is faster.