Unemployment: 4.8 percent. U.S. motor vehicle production: 11.2 million. Even when they are what you expect, things still come as a surprise. The delivery driver should have known better than to feel blindsided when he hit a freeway traffic jam at six A.M. Carmine taillights in the still-dark meant thousands had left early to beat the backups. Not long before, a person needed to be out of the house by seven A.M. to reach work before the freeways clogged. Then by six-thirty, now by six—nobody need be reminded where that trend was headed. Vehicles descended toward the city with vehement determination, tiny parts inside their engines spinning too rapidly to see, men and women inside the cars alone gulping coffee and listening on the radio to agitated voices discussing an outrage or crisis or scandal. There seemed to be a lot of that going around. The predawn traffic was beautiful in a way only our forebears could appreciate, since they could not have dreamed of society being able to build so many roads and place so many machines on them, while today it is hard to imagine these things not existing.
