When I was a kid and watched the Jetsons (remember them?), I expected to see flying cars by the time I was an adult.

Now I am an adult, and a driver, and there are no flying cars on the horizon. Why not?

Well, speaking as a driver, I have the answer. My husband and I drove home from Maine last Sunday. The terrible driving I saw, combined with the craziness that happens on the Taconic every day, persuaded me we will NEVER have flying cars.

People fly up the shoulder and, when that ends as it quickly does on the Taconic (with a stone wall on one side and a guard rail and cliff on the other) they squeeze into heavy traffic. On Sunday, an almost accident happened right in front of me as a black SUV veered left and almost crashed into the car already in that lane.

Parts of the Taconic (official name The Taconic Parkway) was built as a pleasant Sunday highway, not a high speed commuters road full of twists and really narrow lanes. Drivers zoom down the left lane at 65mph, almost sideswiping the drivers in the right. 84, the predominant, east/west route through Connecticut and New York, has three lane sections but they regularly narrow into two. Imagine a large Tahoe struggling to fit into the six inches between the back bumper of one car and the front of another. Yeah, not a good plan. This doesn’t include the cars that weave in and out of traffic like some crazy pinball.

So, back to flying cars. Considering modern driving habits, if people were driving flying cars, burning debris would constantly be raining down on people living their lives down below.