I left my driveway on Kagy at 8:15 a.m. sharp this morning, just as I have for the last twenty-one years. My route is simple: down the hill, over to 19th, and then a slow crawl toward the heart of town. It is a ritual, not a commute, since I am retired. But the roads belong to all of us, and lately, the roads are acting as if they have forgotten how to be roads.

I counted four separate vehicles yesterday that came to a complete, full-stop halt before turning right into an empty parking lot. Why are we stopping? The lane is wide open. The sun is shining, or at least it isn’t snowing yet. If you have the momentum, you should use it. It’s simple physics, really.

Then there is the matter of the roundabouts. We spent years getting used to them, and I will be the first to admit they keep things moving, provided you actually move. But I sat behind a silver sedan at the roundabout near the high school for three full minutes. The driver was waiting for a car that was entering from the opposite side, which is fine, but the car in question hadn’t even reached the yield sign yet.

“People treat the road like a living room sofa,” says Gary Miller, a local carpenter who has spent forty years navigating these same streets. “They want to get comfortable, adjust the mirrors, check their phone, and maybe look at the mountains for a while. Meanwhile, I’ve got three kitchen cabinets in the back of the truck that need to be delivered before noon.”

Gary is right, though he’s far more patient than I am. We have all these newcomers moving here for the “lifestyle,” but they seem to think the lifestyle includes treating North 19th like a scenic byway. It isn’t. It’s a thoroughfare. If you want to look at the Bridger Mountains, I recommend pulling over into a designated turnout. There are several along the way that provide perfectly adequate views without blocking the flow of traffic for the rest of us.

We are a town that prides itself on being rugged and efficient, yet we drive like we are perpetually lost in a grocery store aisle. If we could all just maintain a steady thirty-five miles per hour and commit to our turns with a bit of conviction, we might actually get where we are going before the seasons change.

I suppose I will try again tomorrow at 8:15. If the road is clear, I’ll be grateful. If it isn’t, I’ll just continue to watch the world go by from my rearview mirror.

Dale Crankshaft has been driving the same route to work since 2003 and considers any alteration a personal attack. He is retired but still drives the route.