"I been in the right place but it must have been the wrong time" --Dr. John

Tuesday night I am driving home on the Beltway when all four lanes of traffic come to a halt. Urg. After a bit, emergency vehicles whip by on the shoulder, then, ten minutes later we see more on the median. Double urg. As irritating as it is to be stuck in traffic, someone is having a much worse evening than us merely annoyed commuters.

We inch forward. We do that weavy thing where some cars hug the right side of the lane and some hug the left side of the lane just to try to get a glimpse of whatever is causing this. We can't see it; just a sea of tail lights. It takes over an hour of inching along to get up to and past the problem.

In the meantime, there is much jockeying between lanes. I am impressed that, for the most part, people are not being jerks. They are signaling before they switch lanes. They are allowing for others to get over into their lanes. (We're living in a society here!)

But well into the hour, I notice an entrance ramp on the right. And the reason it catches my eye: Someone has decided to use the ENTRANCE ramp to get OFF the Beltway. Clearly they recognize that it is not an exit ramp because THEY ARE BACKING UP! Yes. They are backing up on the shoulder --thank god for the shoulder-- of the rather long entrance ramp.

This seems to me to be incredibly dangerous, illegal, and --though I risk insulting readers here-- just plain stupid.

Does this make sense to anybody? Have you done this? Would you do this? How bad would you need a bathroom to try something like this? Wouldn't the scare of doing this defeat the need to get to a bathroom?