• A first-generation 8GB iPhone costs $399. Two years of data service at $20 costs $480, for a total of $879 (not including voice service).
• An 8GB 3G iPhone costs $199. Two years of data service at $30 $35 costs $720 $840, for a total of $919 $1039.

In other words, a 3G iPhone will cost you $40 $160 more than a first-generation iPhone over two years. (Over one year, it’s $20 cheaper.) Of course, as a colleague of mine pointed out, when our existing iPhone contracts expire AT&T may jack up the rates on us anyway, so this argument may be moot. On the other hand, if the prices had remained constant the resale value of first-generation iPhones would be much higher and upgrading users would save money that way. In the end, it all comes down to how much faster Internet is worth.

Update: It appears to be even worse. The new $30 data plan doesn’t include SMS text messages. To get the 200 included in the older $20 plan, you pay an additional $5. I’ve revised the numbers above.

My first complaint concerns efficiency and relative toll booth positioning. Going into and coming out of the toll booths, those who are using a FAST LANE pass can expect to be moving faster than those who are stopping to hand their change to a toll collector since the electronic toll collection system only requires the driver to slow to 15 miles per hour (a speed limit most drivers seem to ignore, having discovered that the technology works at over 30 miles per hour). Therefore, two things would make sense. First, FAST LANE booths should be easy for drivers from all lanes to access as they approach the booths. There are toll plazas on in the Boston area that require drivers in the far left lane to cross two lanes of traffic to reach a FAST LANE booth, an activity that is difficult, stressful and dangerous in rush hour traffic. Second, FAST LANE booths should be consistently positioned in the same location at every toll plaza, regardless of whether there are two booths or eight. This is currently not the case, and would not be difficult. All the state would need to do is make a set of rules and consistently apply them to all the toll plazas in the state. For instance, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority could stipulate that if there are two booths, the right booth is FAST LANE and the left booth is not, if there are three booths, the right one is FAST LANE and the left two booths are not, if there are four booths, the outside lanes are FAST LANE and the inside lanes are not, and so on.

My second grievance is related to signage. The toll plazas should be better marked. The signs on the toll booths rely on color rather than clearly printed information to indicate which booths accept FAST LANE and which booths require cash, which works best for those who are already familiar with the signs, and in heavy traffic it is often difficult to change lanes once one is within sight of the booths. For these reasons, a sign about a half of a mile before the toll plaza that informs drivers of which booths are for paying a toll collector and which booths require an electronic transponder with a simple, clear image would help drivers avoid unsafe and difficult last minute lane transfers.

Third, why does the state bother with toll booths that serve both cash and electronic payments? Every toll plaza has at least two booths, and since it is not necessary to place an employee in a FAST LANE booth, and a plaza with two booths generally sees a low volume of traffic, it does not make sense to permit hybrid booths. On the approach, it is difficult to distinguish a FAST LANE-cash hybrid booth from a FAST LANE booth, and therefore drivers who plan to pay cash avoid them. When possible, FAST LANE drivers also avoid hybrid booths because they don�t want to be slowed down by drivers who have to stop to make a cash payment. Consequently, these lanes are unpopular and see little use.

Many of the concerns I have discussed above deal with efficiency and usability. However, this last complaint is almost exclusively related to safety. Many very high volume toll plazas have more toll booths than highway lanes entering and exiting them. Some even have twice as many booths as lanes, or more. This arrangement seems to create terribly unsafe situations. Approaching the booths the highway widens, providing aggressive lane hoppers the opportunity to cross seven or eight lanes to get to the booth they want, and leaving more timid, incompetent or oblivious drivers trapped in a seemingly laneless sea of cars. Once through, the cars exiting the toll plaza are forced to rapidly (usually in the space of about one-half mile) squeeze back into the tight two to four lanes of highway. Again, lane markers and signs do not really help with this process, and aggression seems to win over caution. These megaplazas are unsafe, and do not seem to contribute greatly to efficient highway travel.

All of the concerns I have presented regarding the ease of use, efficiency and safety of Massachusetts toll booths have fairly simple, inexpensive and reasonable solutions. Although I imagine it is an unlikely prospect, I would love to see the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority apply such standards to the design of toll plazas, and road systems in general in Massachusetts. I don�t think I�ll hold my breath.

As is common both in Massachusetts and elsewhere, my parents taught me to drive during my teenage years. As I matured, I began driving through Massachusetts, and even into Boston from time to time. However, my interactions with Massachusetts drivers were limited, and I did not develop much of an opinion of their habits. I generally concluded that everyone I had heard complaining about Massachusetts drivers while I was growing up had been blowing things out of proportion. I conceded that Massachusetts drivers may be a little more aggressive and have a little less regard for traffic laws than those I was familiar with in bordering States, but the distinction did not seem as pronounced as I had been led to believe.

I graduated college in February of 2001 and decided to move to the Boston area. While I had my reservations about being a Bostonian, it seemed like a good place to find fulfilling work and connect with friends. Over the past five years, I have lived in Medford, Brookline and Cambridge, worked in Haverhill, Woburn, Southborough, Norwell and Lynn, and attended graduate classes in Salem. I have never been in a position in which my commute to work or class has been less than 30 minutes (without traffic). In addition, like most Americans, I am quite enamored of automotive travel, and take my car nearly everywhere I need or want to go.

Consequently, I have had ample opportunity to study Massachusetts drivers, and I have reached some important conclusions. To start with, I just want to establish that by and large, Massachusetts residents are bad drivers. Now, at this point I recognize that half my audience is indignantly saying, �I�m not. I�m a good driver.� However, I feel that seven years of driving primarily in Connecticut and Vermont, followed by five years of driving chiefly in Eastern Massachusetts qualifies me to make an objective judgment, and most Massachusetts residents drive poorly.

However, I am not writing this rant to simply confirm something that many New England residents already accept as fact. Rather, I wish to go a step further. I have concluded that there are three central reasons why Massachusetts drivers are so incompetent, and through revealing the fruits of my analysis, I hope to motivate change.

The first reason Massachusetts residents drive poorly is simply because they are not paying attention to what they are doing. I know, it sounds ridiculous that a very large percentage of Massachusetts drivers are not paying attention to an activity that involves operating a piece of $20,000-$60,000 machinery and preserving the lives of at least a few people, but it is true. As I sit in slowly moving traffic every afternoon on a major highway in Boston, I watch people swerve and slam on the breaks as they dial their cell phones, mess with their ipods and car stereos, feed their toddlers Cheerios, read the newspaper, rifle around for items in the glove compartment or on the floor, set up the DVD player for their kids and eat their fast food. It drives those of us who are actually paying attention to the road and trying to get where we are going insane. So, if you regularly do one of the things I have listed above, stop it.

The second reason Massachusetts drivers are so incompetent is they are consistently confronted with irregular, unsafe and changing road conditions. Construction is obviously a necessary aspect of road maintenance, but the level of continual construction that exists in Eastern Massachusetts is terribly unsafe. It constantly launches drivers into situations in which they are forced to contend with potholes, jersey barriers, the elimination of lanes, signs, signals and painted lines, and detours. Furthermore, just when one becomes accustomed to one construction situation, it changes. However, the problem is not just construction. Even when the roads are not under construction, they are a mess. The lanes are too narrow, the roads are often over capacitated, and the region is filled with awkward merges, blind intersections and unsafe rotaries. All of these problems make driving in Eastern Massachusetts difficult, and encourages drivers to be aggressive and make dangerous decisions just to get where they need to go.

The final reason why Massachusetts residents are bad drivers is weak traffic laws and poor law enforcement. Eastern Massachusetts is densely populated and the culture encourages overexertion. Consequently, Massachusetts drivers are always in a hurry to get where they are going and many are very aggressive and violate basic traffic laws. However, I do not necessarily consider this to be their fault when the law enforcement authorities do not seem to be making much of an effort to prevent such behavior. On a daily basis I watch drivers weaving in and out of lanes around other vehicles well above the speed limit, cutting off other drivers, traveling illegally in breakdown lanes, disobeying traffic signals, and generally expecting other vehicles to simply see them coming and get out of the way. These people are endangering themselves and everyone around them and elevating the accident rate in Massachusetts, and either the laws do not punish these reckless behaviors or the police are not properly enforcing the regulations. Given where things currently stand, one cannot expect Massachusetts residents to suddenly begin to drive safely when a disincentive for irresponsible driving does not exist.

Eastern Massachusetts is an unsafe and unpleasant place to drive. This is the result of an environment and the creatures it has reared. In order to change this situation, both the roads and the people need to change. Please consider the part you can play in this process.