meaningless victory

Yesterday D had to get his car serviced, so we drove two cars to work. On the way home, he suggested one of us take 101 and the other take 280, so we could figure out which is faster on a weekday night with no carpool. We laid down some rules (max highway speed, max local speed), I picked 101 so I wouldn't be tempted to exceed them, and we were off.

I pulled into our driveway about 38 minutes later. D arrived just over one minute after. We concluded that despite the frustration of having to fight traffic, 101 is nevertheless a more efficient route, time-wise. (We are thinking of replicating the experiment with our roles reversed, though, as I think I tend to do better in traffic.)