I’m a good driver. I’ve been driving since I was 15, and I’ve never had an accident. My reflexes are good, and I stick to the speed limit, check my mirrors, look up ahead, and watch out for other driver’s mistakes. So why do I feel like the kid in the EZ Driving School car every time I have to go around the Washington Beltway?

My wife and I had to drive up from Tennessee to pack up all the stuff in my mother-in-law’s house in Annapolis, Maryland. (She’s in assisted living, and has dementia.) Coming up I-81, no problem. The traffic was heavy at times, but everyone stayed in their lanes and didn’t drive crazy. Until we got to the Capitol Beltway.

The first thing you see when you exit off of I-66 is an enormous construction project stretching off as far as you can see. The Beltway lanes going through it look as if they were plotted out by drunken monkeys, and the locals change lanes and weave in and out with abandon, cheeseburger in one hand and phone in the other, all at breakneck speed. I don’t know how we made it through there alive.

When you get across the bridge into Maryland, you join a charging pack of cars eight lanes wide, many of them driven by men and women who seem to be trying to make up for the fact that they were never chosen to race at Indy. If you manage to get in the right lane to make the turn east, you will soon find yourself in a rollercoaster-like series of bends and tight turns, as if the builders of the road were stopped when conservationists discovered patches of rare black-footed newts, and were forced to go around them.

Eventually you get to the intersection of I-95 north, where many in the thundering herd leave you, and you can experience a short stretch of relative tranquility until you are joined again by their south-bound brethren in a tooth and nails fight to the finish line.

When I lived around here in my twenties, I drove around this circle of hell almost daily, and thought nothing of it. Am I just getting old, or has the Beltway gotten so bad as to be virtually un-drivable? I don’t know, but of one thing I am sure: Thank God I don’t have to live around here any more.

Now, I’m sure you residents of Falls Church, Silver Spring, College Park, and Alexandria are perfectly happy here, and drive the 495 Beltway with aplomb. Sure, it’s bad, but someone’s gotta do it, right? But if I had to spend several hours every day in this kind of traffic, I would be wondering, is this aggravation really enhancing my life… and I would say no, and move to Alaska, where the only traffic problems are caused by wayward moose.

But I’m old. I remember riding down a two lane road and seeing a sign that said, “Future site of Tyson’s Corner Shopping Center” in a field where cows were grazing. Yesterday when I drove by there, I saw an immense concrete elevated platform for the subway that is being extended out to Dulles Airport, amid complete construction chaos.

I saw no cows.