Playing Chicken on I-66

I often travel Interstate 66 eastbound to Route 7 late in what is called the peak period. That's incredibly annoying, as if rush hour in its peakiness weren't annoying enough already. Traffic between Route 29 and the Beltway is hard to predict -- WAMU and WTOP don't mention it unless it's really bad, and anything less than really bad can vary between not bad and bad. Lately has been really bad.

Points of congestion are many. But the mess approaching the Beltway is usually the worse bottleneck. Traffic backs up in each lane, waiting for the glorious opportunity to get on an off ramp or break on through to the other side. (What can only pray that the Beltway's high-occupancy toll lanes will offer relief.)

But here's the tricky part. I, like most of my fellow drivers, am not party to a high-occupancy vehicle, so going solo isn't statutory inside the Beltway. As I idle before Nutley Street, my last chance to bail before the Beltway, the time is 8:43.

Do I risk getting through too early and getting pulled over by a motorcycle cop at 8:57? Or do I pull off on Nutley for a new sense of bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go on Route 29? The former is an expensive slap on the wrist (if caught), the latter a detour to more delay.

For the record, I usually take the bus. If I'm driving at the height of rush hour I have to allot about the same time anyway. Or leave later and risk being late.

But what about you? If you drive eastbound when I-66 inside the Beltway is a no-go, how do you go about it?

Photo credit: Nutley Street sign by Luigi de Guzman.