Chardy Pass announced the white lettering on green background of the street sign.  I never would have noticed it if my son, Ted, hadn’t said, “they’re breaking the law.”

Indeed, the two cars that had just turned off the high-speed lane on eastbound traffic on Massachusetts Route 90 hardly a mile from the rest stop near Sturbridge were violating the law. The pass, no more than an earthen semi circle, was clearly to be used only by state police and other official vehicles. But these were desperate times calling for bolt actions.

It was Sunday and the two of us were returning from a weekend in upstate New York.  On a good day the run between Warwick and Cooperstown, assuming a full tank of gas, good weather, light traffic and no stops, can be made in just over four hours. It took us six.

It looked like a four hour trip when we set off shortly before 10 a.m. Route 20, once the main thoroughfare in these parts until the New York Thruway was built, was deserted. Vistas of the surrounding hills, fog slipping from the ridges opened to the distant Mohawk Valley. It was a late summer scene of verdant fields of 6-foot high corn, clapboard colonials, farms setback from the road and cows feeding.

We were in for a surprise barely 20 minutes into the drive when we stopped at the village of Sharon to fuel up. There wasn’t an empty pump and there wasn’t parking around the Stewart’s convenience store either.  Motorists attempted to navigate in or out of the lot while without waiting to park, parents let their kids out to race into the store. Stress was building.

It was a harbinger of things to come although it was another 50 miles before we connected with Route 90 on the other side of Albany and the “real” test of driver patience.

Initially it seemed like a matter of weaving through knots of poky drivers who refused to move from the left lane. We’d catch breaks where Ted would get up to the speed limit only to look ahead to a solid line of vehicles inching along. Soon we would be doing 35 mph.

Fortunately, Ted likes analyzing what affects behaviors and patterns. It’s engaging, relieves aggravation and makes one forget that this is less than a pleasant experience. As he observed, the traffic was going in pulses and that there was likely to be a narrowing of lanes, breakdown or accident ahead. Once we got by that everything would be up to speed. But there was no accident or breakdown. Splits in the lanes for bridge construction didn’t seem to be the cause either.  We turned to the radio for diversion, anything to break the monotony of traffic.

As we approached the intersection with 84, it got worse. We were reduced to a crawl with anxious motorists jumping between lanes which only further reduced progress for everyone. I took to watching people. The driver of the Amazon blue tractor trailer, cigarette dangling from his wrist looked to be the only one reasonably at ease with conditions.  The “tiny girl in the tiny car,” as we called her after inching four cars ahead to have her return beside us, didn’t change position. Her head was cupped in her left hand as if she were napping. Then there was the car ahead with the back window open. Was there a dog in the back seat? As we sped up to all of 5 mph, I spotted a woman curled up and asleep. Ahead of her was a Connecticut registered car with a veteran plate.  I imagined a senior citizen behind the wheel. Instead, it was a young man who looked to be in high school. We were all of about four feet away, but he didn’t look over.  In fact, none of the other drivers looked around. Stoically, they starred ahead as if that might alter things or worked their cell phones with hands on the wheel.

The only pronouncement of annoyance came from the driver who leaned on his horn after Ted took advantage of the gap he had left open.

As we approached the eastbound Charlton rest area near Sturbridge, traffic started to move in the right lane. When we reached the plaza it was obvious many had thought this a means of jumping to the head of the line. Cars were backed up to the gas pumps as they waited to regain a place on the highway.  Nothing gained and probably a lot lost.

But then there wasn’t a head of the line. The whole line needed to move.

However, there was a way out, Clardy Pass. Surely more than the two motorists we spotted used it.

It was tempting. Ted checked his phone. The traffic was meant to start moving after passing the westbound Charlton Plaza. Before we reached it, the high-speed lane was freshly paved and the rest of the road had been milled for paving.

“It’s all because of this,” declared Ted.  It seemed highly unlikely that cars reducing speed because of rutted lanes could have a ripple slow down of more than 20 miles.

I wasn’t going to argue. I was too happy to be traveling at 45 mph.