Solar Slowdown Season

Tis the season for solar slowdowns. ...if you drive east in the morning and west in the evening. Due to the time change and rotation of the earth, there are four times a year that one can encounter the solar slowdown, assuming you keep the same schedule. For days before the onset, you see the sun creeping up, nearer and nearer to the horizon directly in front of you in the morning. Currently, this is the time when I encounter the fiery, blinding beast that halts traffic. Sunglasses don't help.

Similar to the onset of the blinding sun, you can see the cars slowing down and stopping a half mile away. You near them and start to see the culprit: sun shrapnel bouncing off of cars. You watch as people try to get behind big trucks or tailgate vehicles taller than their own to use the other person as a shield. You are often left in the desert and surrounded only by other vehicles your size. Vast gaps emerge between cars without shields because it's so hard to see if the person in front of them has stopped, so the more room, the less likely an accident will happen. It feels like years that you're driving blind, creeping at a slow pace. And suddenly, a break! The sun goes behind a patch of trees or a building. Everyone speeds up, trying to get as far as they can before the inevitable sun reappears.

When there is no solar slowdown in the morning, there is often a time of solar slowdown after work. When this happens at the beginning of your commute, you long for the sun to go down so that you don't have to creep all the way home, however you realize it will be dark when you get home. Bittersweet.

During the winter, there is about two weeks where you find yourself driving into the sun both on the way into work and on the way home. This is an all-out war on your corneas. You may find yourself adjusting the seat higher up so that you are shaded by your visor, though you lose a lot of visibility and in reality, the visor creates more glare.

Beware of the solar slowdown season, but know that it won't last long. Within a week or two, you'll be driving either in already sunny skies (after sunrise and before sunset) or darkness.