And it so happened that on the day of the snowfall, the author of these lines had to spend almost from morning to evening behind the wheel, driving through the streets of the capital. Contrary to my initial assumptions, most of the “beautiful day” passed without the expected horrors along the way. Yes, it rained from the sky, bless you, the wind blew. A real storm. Forecasters later spoke of a total of 30-40 centimeters of snowdrifts. Yes, cars and buses skidded, but everyone rode along. Carefully, at low speeds, without racing shows. The people kept their distance and gradually reorganized themselves.

Because the capital’s drivers are, for the most part, friends with brains. Just a kind of grace. And personally, I did not see a single (!) accident along the way on the afternoon of December 3 in Moscow. Neither in the center, nor on outbound highways, nor on the Third Ring Road. Maybe I was just lucky. Although unlikely.

And at the end of this long day, when I had to wade through completely unclean snowdrifts in every courtyard I visited and occasionally tap the ice from the windshield wipers while stopping at traffic lights, I managed to get onto the Moscow Ring Road to drive. During the day I became convinced that things were slow and quiet, but that the whole city was moving. And along the “ring” it was closest to my house. I relaxed and paid for it.

Only then did I understand where all those brainless idiots behind the wheel had come from – those who cause accidents out of nowhere. That day they had a meeting on the Moscow Ring Road.

And while we were all waiting for the traffic police to show up in the company of a truck with reagents, dragging the skidding “long-distance vehicles” up the mountain, it dawned on me! What if they really aren’t idiots who infiltrate the left ranks and, as expected, stick around? What if they have everything thought through?

Judge for yourself: if trucks in their 1-2 rows begin to “hang” on the rise, traffic along the Moscow Ring Road will continue – because of the free section. And the traffic police will not be forced to use a tractor to pick up the “long-distance vehicles” who have saved a lot of money by buying normal tires for their tractors. Each time they will have to wait for the snow to melt on the asphalt, or pay a lot of money for the services of freight tow trucks. But as soon as such an ‘activist’ blocks the Moscow Ring Road and pretends to be a fool, he is dragged up the mountain for free. It is enough to repeat the trick of driving into the left lane and blocking the road at every slope and – “life is good”!

And the fact that thousands of people lose tens of thousands of hours of their lives in the ‘brown’ traffic jams it causes – I don’t care! The main thing is that the “professional” managed to earn his own money!

And it so happened that on the day of the snowfall, the author of these lines had to spend almost from morning to evening behind the wheel, driving through the streets of the capital. Contrary to my initial assumptions, most of the “beautiful day” passed without the expected horrors along the way. Yes, it rained from the sky, bless you, the wind blew. A real storm. Forecasters later spoke of a total of 30-40 centimeters of snowdrifts. Yes, cars and buses skidded, but everyone rode along. Carefully, at low speeds, without racing shows. The people kept their distance and gradually reorganized themselves.

Because the capital’s drivers are, for the most part, friends with brains. Just a kind of grace. And personally, I did not see a single (!) accident along the way on the afternoon of December 3 in Moscow. Neither in the center, nor on outbound highways, nor on the Third Ring Road. Maybe I was just lucky. Although unlikely.

And at the end of this long day, when I had to wade through completely unclean snowdrifts in every courtyard I visited and occasionally tap the ice from the windshield wipers while stopping at traffic lights, I managed to get onto the Moscow Ring Road to drive. During the day I became convinced that things were slow and quiet, but that the whole city was moving. And along the “ring” it was closest to my house. I relaxed and paid for it.

Only then did I understand where all those brainless idiots behind the wheel had come from – those who cause accidents out of nowhere. That day they had a meeting on the Moscow Ring Road.

And while we were all waiting for the traffic police to show up in the company of a truck with reagents, dragging the skidding “long-distance vehicles” up the mountain, it dawned on me! What if they really aren’t idiots who infiltrate the left ranks and, as expected, stick around? What if they have everything thought through?

Judge for yourself: if trucks in their 1-2 rows begin to “hang” on the rise, traffic along the Moscow Ring Road will continue – because of the free section. And the traffic police will not be forced to use a tractor to pick up the “long-distance vehicles” who have saved a lot of money by buying normal tires for their tractors. Each time they will have to wait for the snow to melt on the asphalt, or pay a lot of money for the services of freight tow trucks. But as soon as such an ‘activist’ blocks the Moscow Ring Road and pretends to be a fool, he is dragged up the mountain for free. It is enough to repeat the trick of driving into the left lane and blocking the road at every slope and – “life is good”!

And the fact that thousands of people lose tens of thousands of hours of their lives in the ‘brown’ traffic jams it causes – I don’t care! The main thing is that the “professional” managed to earn his own money!