The sky outside is like white noise on my windshield. My wipers strain to shove the slush to the sides of my vision while my hands attempt to maneuver my trusty Dodge Caravan through the muck all over the road. Every time some random 4x4 pickup truck wobbles past me, I hold my breath. I try to keep my bearings set on the tracks set in the snow from the FedEx van in front of me. The FedEx driver is keeping it slow and steady and I can't justify deviating from their sound plan.
Suddenly a veritable boat of a car sails onto the highway in front of us. In a matter of seconds the car spins out in front of me and the my package-toting companion. After a quick slam into the right barrier the driver over-corrects and tears back onto the highway, cutting a perpendicular line across the road, straight towards the stalwart package deliverer.
I can't help but wonder what caused these other people to be out on the road in this blizzard. The FedEx van has an obvious goal, but the giant, brown hooptie that broadsides it appeared to be on the road with the an explicit mission to cause havoc.
In between orders at work, I run across this article on Mashable. The 9% Twitter usage is a bothersome statistic. It makes me think that if we somehow utilized Twitter in a smarter manner it could truly have a purpose that would draw in millions of users from across the country. Look at Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Their use of this social network helped unify people to one goal. It was a tool that received great attention and served a great purpose.
Looking back on the traffic accidents, I can't help thinking that at least some people would benefit from a dedicated Twitter feed. How about one that tracks the daily routes for those commuting from Albany to Troy? I'm sure some network weatherman already have something like this. Tack on some user-friendly software that allows for certain tweets to be read out loud to you by your car and we have a computer that informs you of the accident after Exit 6 or the pile up on on Manning, "try cutting down South Main instead."
As I saw this horrific accident play out in front of me, I glanced in my rear-view mirror and saw the flashing blue lights of a volunteer fireman flick on behind me. I drove on to clear the way for him to reach them. Thinking about that now, I realize that it wouldn't just be civilians that could benefit from such connectivity.
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