Another Lehigh Valley Traffic Report In Ten Minutes

[Those RRRRs]

Am I the only one who thinks that WAEB's traffic reports are a little goofy? Every other station in the world has a traffic person who reads all of the road conditions and covers all of the major roads in a particular metro area. And this person always reads the road conditions road by road, in an organized and timely manner. But not at WAEB. Nope.

At WAEB, you have two guys who seem to drive back and forth Rt. 22 and and Rt. 78 all day, and report via a cell phone the conditions at whichever point in the road the person is at the particular time of the traffic report. Am I the only one who has noticed that this is strange?

What if I'm at Cedar Crest Blvd. and an accident has just taken place, and the traffic reporter is driving near Rt. 512 and says, "Traffic is smooth at Rt. 512....another traffic report in ten minutes."

And then the other guy comes on and says, "No jam ups on Rt. 78 at Hamilton Blvd...another traffic report in ten minutes."

There is no "What If." It's happened. Who reports traffic like that? And meanwhile, thousands of people are stopped at Cedar Crest Blvd. while these two guys are just driving around aimlessly up and down these two roads talking on their cell phones over the radio. Maybe THAT'S why there are so many accidents on those two roads.

If I were a traffic reporter and had to report traffic the way they do on WAEB, I would say, "I'm driving on 22 near McArthur Rd, and you wouldn't believe all the morons that are on the road today." (Horn blowing in the background) "Get out of the way, you jerk....Oh, I'm number one pal? I'll show you who's number one!"

(Another horn in the background) "Look at this dumb broad, putting on her makeup in the rear view mirror...hey, watch it! Where the hell did you idiots learn to drive? I can't take anymore."

"Now I've got "Fatty Boom A Latty" riding my a$$ stuffing a jelly donut down his throat while he's weaving in and out of traffic all around." (Horn blows again) "You big dummy! That's it, I quit. Another traffic report in ten minutes."

 

[Interstate 78]

your post made my day. LOL it's kinda scary too because i was just thinking this very thing to myself the other day. not only is your post 100 percent correct about those goofy "i'm driving near airport road" reports, but i also get a huge kick outta the way they advertise doing traffic throughout the day and then their mid-day traffic reports are nothing more than "construction set for route 78 near 100 now through next week." who the hell cares? there's construction EVERYDAY on the roads. i want to hear about accidents and actual tieups. stations get those stupid faxes from penn-dot all the time. that's the extent of their mid-day traffic reports?

face it, traffic reports in smaller markets leave a lot to be desired. some stations it simply involves some dude sitting at a police scanner and reporting what he hears. so if he's listening to one dispatcher reporting an accident somewhere and that report cuts into another scanner channel reporting another more serious accident somewhere, that other accident never gets reported. or even more, i think a lot of dispatchers are sending reports of accidents out to the police on the road through their on-board computers and it never hits the scanner airwaves. result? it never hits the radio traffic reports.

you only get decent traffic reports in huge cities like Philly and New York where they have traffic sensors and cameras in a zillion locations along the side of the road sensing the speed of traffic etc. or helicopters in the air. in smaller markets like allentown and reading, this is what we get.

 

[drpickle]

I have noticed that WGPA jocks now read their own traffic. They get a report from Metro but read it themselves. Is this the way it is on the other Metro affiliated stations? Did they get rid of their traffic crew? Supposedly Metro has been more accurate in the LV than the other stations in the area. However, in Reading they reportedly were not doing well and WEEU dropped them. But, from what I hear WEEU is not really doing better on their own.

 

[making waves]

Metro closed their LV office and laid off their staff. I guess there's not enough traffic here to staff it? HA! There are reports that come from Harrisburg for the stations that subscribe to their service.

Truthfully, reporting traffic is a thankless job, and a lot more complicated than you think. By the time that news of an accident gets from the scene, to dispatch, to a scanner, to a traffic reporter, to air, there is often several minutes delay...so sometimes if its cleared quickly, it could be gone by the time the report airs. Most traffic people in the LV are handling more than one station. Most jocks I know will also air calls directly from listeners as soon as they get them about traffic incidents and pass along the info to the traffic reporter. So try juggling listening to a scanner for accidents, checking the web for reported problems (pa turnpike n such), and then laying down reports for four stations within a 10-minute time span.

Traffic people do their best but get constantly b*tched out by listeners.