But I had little choice. I was meeting my friends Al and Donna from Scotland, and had invited them back to Philly for the weekend, with the promise that I would drive them (and their luggage) back to Newark International. Not great, but it could be worse. It could have been JFK. I said this aloud as we were sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, headed down to Philly—the Statue of Liberty holding her torch high above the weeds of the Jersey wetlands. Al cocked an eyebrow.

"We are flying out of JFK."

"Not Newark?"

"No, no," he said, in a soft accent that makes him sound like a Beatle. "JFK."

Of course, Al was right. And on the way to JFK Sunday evening, I had a glimpse into the nightmare vision of George Bush's "oil-addicted" America. Of a country that's probably driving itself to death, and paying $30 a shot to do it.

Join me, will you?

4:35 p.m. We depart Northeast Philly. Al and Donna's flight isn't until 11:30 p.m., and suggested check-in isn't until 8:30 p.m., so we're swimming in time. According to Google, the trip is only about 100 miles and should take an hour and 48 minutes. It's Sunday evening. Sweet as a nut.

5:10 p.m. I make the loop onto the NJ Turnpike and Donna gasps. There's a sea of red taillights. For the first—but not the last—time that night, I pray that it's just an accident.

5:13 p.m. I inch into the lane and feel really guilty about wishing for an accident. What kind of a ghoul am I?

5:37 p.m. After moving about three miles in 20 minutes, I'm pretty much wanting to see a twisted wreck and splattered blood.

5:50 p.m. The NJ Turnpike splits into six lanes, and we all start moving at regular speeds. If you consider 85 mph to be "regular."

6:45 p.m. We reach Exit 13—the Goethals Bridge. "We're home free," I say. From here, it's just a zip through Staten Island, a hop over the Verrazano, and then a delightful jaunt out on the Belt Parkway east to JFK.

6:46 p.m. Exit 13 is dead jammed. We inch forward. One. Yard. At. A. Time. The. Whole. Time.

7:32 p.m. We clear the Goethals and approach the tollbooth. "Six dollars for a car," Al says. "Sounds expensive." In Scotland, he tells me, there are no tolls for roads—only two bridges. I tell him in America, tolls were instituted to pay for the construction of roads and bridges. Then certain people began to enjoy the revenue stream and "forgot" to repeal the tolls. "That's just taking the piss," Al says.

7:33 p.m. Here we go. I pay the six bucks, clear the tolls and hammer the gas pedal. The car hits 65 miles per hour in a few seconds, hugs a curve, and … No. No no no. You've got to be …

7:40 p.m. Al looks at the Staten Island houses just off I-278. "They're probably laughing at us," he says. I say, "They're probably people who were stuck in traffic, and then said fuck it—let's just build a house here."

7:50 p.m. Weird: The opposing lanes are completely clear, except for a lone car once in a while.

7:55 p.m. We see there is a horrific accident in the opposing lanes. Just as we drive by, our lanes suddenly clear up, and we rocket over the Verrazano. The Belt Parkway is crowded, but it moves.

8:05 p.m. I never realized how long the Belt Parkway is. We whiz by Coney Island too fast to appreciate it. I want to tell Al some stories about how this part of Brooklyn is a Russian mob stronghold, but we're speeding along too fast.

8:16 p.m. One hundred miles and three traffic jams later, we reach JFK airport. As I steer onto a ramp leading to Terminal 8 … another sea of red taillights.

8:23 p.m. Al and Donna enter the terminal. I look for a bullet in my glove compartment.

10:53 p.m. I return home, a little more than six hours since I began—double the time I thought it would take.

I know that the Inquirer has run a few stories about gas prices not impacting mass transit ridership. I know people here and in the 'burbs are just swallowing it.

But come Monday morning, I was never happier to step onto a SEPTA bus.