While the gf and I were dining along the NJ Turnpike this evening at an especially crowded rest stop, I realized that there's a critical point at which rest stop efficiency starts to drop off especially drastically. There are a limited number of parking lot spaces, and the place also only has so much capacity to serve people (and for people to use the bathroom) without long lines forming. But around when the parking lot reaches capacity or overcapacity, the facilities inside also do.
What happens at this point is that the average time spent inside the rest stop grows considerably (from waiting in line for both food and the bathroom), meaning the average amount of time spent in the parking lot also increases, which further compounds the delays for all those people still waiting for a space.
Saltzman's Curve, we dubbed it.
The only thing mitigating this potential catastrophe, we realized, is that some families, feeling that their stay has already been too long due to waits for parking, food, and restrooms, may choose to eat their food in the car.
However, if the family merely eats their food in the car in the parking lot, they're not really saving anyone any time. So we propose that each family have a "designated driver," as it were, in these peak times, who will not eat, but drive while everyone else eats.
In order to encourage this efficient behavior, we have devised a slogan to be posted in rest stops:
"If Saltzman's Curve is in effect, don't eat and drive, and don't eat, drive, but don't not eat and not drive(the last part meaning that if you are not the designated driver, you should eat now, because you may need to be the designated driver at the next rest stop). However, if you're under driving age, you might as well eat while you're driving, because you're not supposed to be driving anyway.
― Abbadabba Berman (Hurting), Sunday, 27 November 2005 02:07 (twenty years ago)