Multitasking in the car

I'm always surprised when October/November rolls around and there is some new construction taking place along the nation's roadways. I saw this over the weekend while traveling to and from New York, through Pennsylvania and Ohio, and back home in Michigan. It seems in recent years, not all projects take place in the hot summer months. Since a lot of it is from ARRA money, I guess it's extending the jobs out and keeping people employed for as long as possible into the season.

Coming up US 23 in the Toledo area on Sunday afternoon, we encountered a stop and go slow-down. Some guys were actually tearing up the concrete -- on a weekend. What's always amazing to me is the activity going on in other cars. As everyone tries to squeeze into one lane, there's always those who will whip by the traffic accommodating the merge, and of course, when they HAVE to blend in, it slows the rest of us down even more. It's just darn inconsiderate. 

I've also noticed the multitasking that seems to take place in the cars as we slow down to a crawl. You almost always see someone on the phone, waving their hands as they talk. Ii've seen people reaching to the back seat, whether tending a child back there or doing who knows what. 

A recent trip home from Frankenmuth took the cake for multitasking in the car, however. A woman driving the vehicle ahead of us kept leaning over to the passenger seat, and then to the back seat, bopping around like crazy, and not just when we were at a standstill, but as the cars started to move at 20-30 mph. My husband and I asked each other, "What on earth is she doing?" Soon, we saw her hold up an item of clothing over the steering wheel. Then she had her head down, then passed it to the passenger seat. Then, she reached to the back again. The woman was folding laundry while driving. That, to us, takes the cake for multitasking in the car.