Holiday Traffic and How to Avoid It

"If you're heading out of town this weekend, you can expect heavy traffic on the roads." Dog bites man story, right? Not only is every holiday weekend a bad time to drive, but the roads are congested every day in the DC area.

What can you do about the traffic if you can't afford your own private helicopter and home heliport?  What you can do is to check the traffic before you put your car in drive. With a little heads up, you can avoid the worst roads and chose alternate routes. There are several websites that can give you a preview of what lies ahead. The best place to start is with the District of Columbia traffic cams. Take a peek at the local streets before you head out. There's almost nothing worse than starting out on a long drive, only to have it take 45 minutes just to get to the Beltway.

The all-knowing Google has good, real-time traffic information. Google Maps is easy to read, easy to use, and worth consulting.

Traffic Land offers both traffic cameras and a traffic map, so you can get an overview of how bad it's going to be and take evasive action.

There are a lot of smartphone apps, such as INRIS, which works on both Android and iPhones, that can give you real-time traffic information, too. Google Maps mobile also has live traffic information. Just be sure that it's your passenger and not you, the driver, who's trying to divine the best route to take while you're on I-95 -- or you may end up being the cause of the next traffic jam.