I recently traveled to the vicinity of Baltimore/Washington, D.C. I brought along a trunking digital scanner to allow me to stay informed regarding activity in my immediate area. My observations come from the perspective of someone who has lived in very rural areas most of his life.
The DC metro area is an excellent example of diversity. From my viewpoint, it appears that caucasians are in the minority, though I didn't note any race friction in stores, parks, or restaurants. Folks seemed to be polite to each other. Each day, I went on lengthy walks and never felt threatened in any of my encounters. But, I was also advised to stay away from certain areas due to drugs and other illegal activities.
It was interesting to visit a Walmart, where most of the toiletries, i.e., razors, skin care products, etc., were behind locked cases. Instead of greeters, they had security guards at the entrances, so theft must be a major problem.
Listening to the scanner revealed the dark under belly of the area. There were armed holdups of fast food chain restaurants pretty much on a nightly basis. Security alarm activations were many, and dispatch kept a record of activations in an effort to verify the number of false alarms. I noted a high level of juvenile activity, mostly vandalizing and harassing folks. The kids need their energy to be funneled into productive activities, i.e., work. There also seemed to be a high level of domestic abuse, mostly black males were the perps. There were also many fights among the natives, sometimes groups as large as 20. Back-up calls were frequent, as the responding officers realized they couldn't control the situation with the numbers they had. Shots fired by unknown persons was a regular event. There seemed to be a high number of driving while impaired too. There was very little dead air time, as radio traffic seemed to be almost continuous during the evening hours.
There seemed to be more disabled vehicles along the roads. My return trip to middle Tennessee was hell. The traffic flow was terrible, one second you would be rolling along at 70 mph and three seconds later you would be at a stand still, for no obvious reason. I observed one serious accident on the northbound side of I-81, where a life flight helicopter had landed in the middle of the northbound lanes. Needless to say, traffic was backed up a good 10 miles, and I observed a similar situation just east of Knoxville. My return trip was on a Thursday, so I'm not sure why the traffic was so heavy. Gas prices weren't too bad, I think the highest I paid was $3.29 per gallon of unleaded gas. Tractor trailer trucks definitely adversely effected traffic flow, especially in Virginia.
All in all, it was an okay trip. The highlight was visiting an amateur radio store. I do miss using cruise control, it's not really usable with the heavy traffic on I-81.
