If there’s something that irritates me profoundly, it’s discovering that the time I spent in stop-and-go traffic was due to an accident in the opposite direction. The degree of irritation is proportional to the number of times I have to engage first gear, balance the force I stop exerting on the clutch pedal with what I apply with my right leg so the car moves a few meters without hiccupping; take my foot off the accelerator to hit the brake while stretching my left leg again to keep the engine from stalling.

It’s an absurd choreography that drivers of automatics or electrics will never understand. The mechanical ballet of three pedals and two legs, the coordination gymnastics that becomes second nature until the day you have to repeat it two hundred times in half an hour.

To avoid boredom and to prevent my right arm from going numb, sometimes I disengage first gear and sometimes I don’t, allowing rest to my contracted left thigh; randomly, mind you, to create a sort of game and delude myself about the control I have over that routine. I realize the decision not to touch the gear stick or let my left leg rest is fueled by hope of moving a few more meters or, who knows, even engaging second, third, and so on, freeing myself from repeating that infernal cycle. But the brake’s demands impose themselves too often and there goes the expectation.

Yes, unlike any incident happening in the direction we’re traveling, where there’s a real possibility of stopping completely without entering that repetitive physical exercise to tame the machine, if it’s curiosity and voyeurism making those behind wait, there’s no escaping the irritation.

It’s the second-hand voyeurism that revolts me most. We don’t even see the original accident—we see people seeing the accident. We’re spectators of spectators, in an infinite chain of morbid curiosity. And we participate! That’s the part that’s hardest to admit. I mentally scold the others while doing exactly the same, looking sideways, slowing down “for safety.”

I don’t know anyone who likes being in stop-and-go traffic. That doesn’t mean such people don’t exist. Nor can I say I haven’t had good moments in such circumstances. But I have no memory of not being irritated when I see there’s no reason to slow down or even stop just to look, without any intention, I imagine, in 99% of cases, of doing anything other than just that.

The irritation is such that not even the countless attempts at rationalization I’ve gone through help relieve that heat rising to my hair roots. It’s as if the illustrious drivers instantly become car insurance experts, assessing damage, or forensic technicians, like CSI, figuring out who was at fault and reconstructing the “crime scene.” Each has their theory, their analysis, their verdict—all based on three seconds of observation at 30km/h.

Anyway, I foresee this irritation won’t dissipate. It could, perhaps, transform into haughtiness or some other type of superiority over those who stop or slow down just to look. All things considered, I think I’ll continue to be irritated, keeping said irritation within the cabin. Because deep down, this irritation is also a way of being alive, of still having energy to care about daily stupidity. The day I accept stop-and-go traffic with Buddhist serenity will be the day I’ve given up any hope in humanity. For now, I get irritated. Therefore, I still believe.

These days, I glide silently through the same traffic in my electric car, my left foot idle, my right arm free. The stop-and-go is effortless now. And yet—and yet—the irritation remains exactly the same. Turns out it was never about the clutch.

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