DC Driving

I've driven in some major cities to include: Boston, New York, Philedelphia, Baltimore, Buffalo, Toronto, Newark, Richmond, Tampa, Orlando, Miami, Hartford, Worcester, Providence, and Albany.
You could combine all of the traffic of these cities and it would not even come close to comparing to the traffic of DC!
I live 14 miles from the inner city and the catering company I work for is in the city... they require for me to be there at 8:30am. In order to make it on time, I have to leave at 6am.
Not kidding!!!! It can take up to 3 hours to make it there!
The first month I lived here, I cried EVERY DAY on my commute!
The highway I have to take is 4 lanes wide (6 in some places) and constantly packed solid! Rush hours are from 6am to 10am and then 3pm to 7pm.
I think even at the, "Mixing Bowl"... yes there is a section of the highway called the "mixing bowl"..... it might even be like 8 lanes... the "mixing bowl" is where 95, (both of them... there is two of every highway around here)....both 495's (inner/outer loops), 695, 895,395, and 295 all meet up and mix around eachother into a big messy mess mess.....
The worst traffic is at the 14th St. bridge.... you know the one that was hit by a plane in like '87.
It sucks to sit on this dink of a bridge for and hour and a half.... Reagan Airport is like right there, so the planes are flying over constantly... and they are SOOOO LOW! Everytime you see one which is like every 3 minutes.... you can't help but wonder... the pentagon is on your left, the monument is like northeasterly... the white house is right there... the treasury is right in front of you and the airport is on your right.
Part of the reason why there is so much traffic at the bridge is because the HOV merges to 14th street after the bridge and before the bridge the traffic from the parkway is merged on via the left side... where I'd say 75% of that traffic crosses all the way over to the right... Also, Route 1 traffic merges in the same manner.
So okay.... 2 hours have gone by and you're at the end of the bridge.... it's a 2-way, 2-lane split.... to the left is 295, to the right is 14th street... takes you in....
Inevitably.... the middle two lanes are a battle ground..... and now one uses a blinker... they just go.... but the thing that pisses me off the most is diplomats with international liscenses... they don't have to take a driver's test... they just get a liscense. They can do whatever the fuck they want....... with NO consequences... and they do!
It's a constant competition... trying to drive around here..... a competition to see who can do the most fucked up thing.
Everytime I get in my car.... I strap myself in and take a deep breath.
Someone told me once that when they were engineering the roads in DC, they had a map and each guy put his beer bottle on it and drew around them. HA!