Congestion avoidance. Isn't that the reason we love living here in Ventura County?

Oh yes, we have our occasional traffic problems, but for many of us, life's a whole lot better than where we came from. All you have to do is drive down to L.A. once in a while to realize that we are truly blessed to not have to endure that kind of daily congestion.

After decades of enjoying the carefree lifestyle we have in Ventura County, I try to practice congestion avoidance when I'm away from home as well. When I travel, I attempt to anticipate where the crowds will be and avoid them.

For instance, when it comes to cruising, if I'm not traveling with children, I try to avoid summer sailings. Ships are loaded with families. Kids sometimes run amok. I also stay away from huge cruise ships that seem to generate congestion wherever they go.

Actually the best time to cruise without a crowd and to save some serious money is coming up soon. The period between Thanksgiving and Christmas is traditionally the slowest time of the year for cruise lines. People are focused on holiday planning and entertaining. That means fares are lower because of the weak demand. But be advised that the situation changes quickly; during that week between Christmas and New Year's Day everyone wants to go cruising.

As for car trips, a congestion avoidance basic is to stay off the 101 southbound on a Sunday afternoon. Another is to not drive to Las Vegas on a Friday or return on a Sunday. Turning a blind eye to any of these well-known axioms means you'll end up motoring cheek by jowl with all those other Southern Californians.

I had a rare visit to Las Vegas to plan for last month. Taking all I've learned about congestion avoidance into account, I outlined a driving itinerary that employed a Thursday departure and a Saturday return.

Sure it's only a one-hour flight to Vegas, but the science of congestion avoidance dictates that if you can drive it in five hours, you'll probably get there just as fast by car. No arriving at the airport 90 minutes early to go through crowded security lines, no waiting for baggage or rental cars at your destination. Instead, you whiz along in your own personal cocoon.

I hadn't counted on the overturned truck halfway between Barstow and Baker.

The width of a two-lane freeway is significantly smaller, it turns out, than the length of a truck lying on its side perpendicular to the roadway.

This was my first experience in the kind of traffic jam you see depicted in newspaper photos. We're talking about a situation where motorists turn off their engines, climb out of their vehicles and wander about aimlessly on asphalt where vehicles normally fly along at speeds well in excess of the posted 70 mph.

The wandering, I discovered, was mostly a quest for information about what happened and how long one will be stranded. I watched the guy in front of me take his binoculars out of his trunk to scan the horizon. Perhaps he didn't realize we were on a long incline and all visible cars were parked as well. He reported back, "I couldn't see anything." I avoided the guy behind me in the burnt orange PT Cruiser. I had seen his distinctive vehicle pulled over an hour earlier receiving a speeding ticket. At this point, I assumed that he was having a pretty bad day.

There is a radio station that covers that section of Interstate 15 that promotes traffic reports, but its information was only partially helpful. From its broadcast I knew a truck was on its side, but the first report that the truck was up and on the shoulder was premature and later retracted.

Perhaps most discouraging was the firsthand report unselfishly delivered from one of the thousands of vehicles flying past on the other side of the freeway divider. We had become accustomed to the occasional trucker honking at us as he sped past, but this car driver actually took the time to open his window and bellow across the divider, "You guys are screwed!"

This was our only firsthand report. Clearly the proclamation had come from someone who had driven past the scene of the accident and then along an endless line of parked cars. At what later turned out to be eight miles from the crash site, this self-appointed town crier cared enough — while driving at a high rate of speed, mind you — to inform us that our situation was not an enviable one.

According to later news reports, I was stuck at about the halfway point of a 15-mile interstate parking lot. I'm happy to report that the truck driver who overturned his rig was not seriously injured. My total time marooned in the desert was about two hours. It just seemed longer.

All right, I'll admit that my life's work devoted to congestion avoidance must still be classified as an imperfect science.

The Nobel Prize is still a distant dream.

— David Loe, president of Radio Cruises, has been organizing group cruises for Ventura County residents for more than 20 years. Contact him at David@RadioCruises.com.