We don’t drive like we used to. This isn’t an old guy “back in my day” rant, well maybe it is, but consider.
My younger daughter is sitting in her mom’s Sienna yesterday at Wegmans with the car parked, off, in the passenger seat and the car gets hit by a guy who wasn’t paying attention. What was perfect was how he wanted to blame her. “Yo, you must have been moving.” Nice try, spunky.
Now, that isn’t to say somethings aren’t timeless when it comes to rules of the road.
If you are on 5th Ave in New York, and the light turns red, you drive like holy hell to get to the next light. Some roads, like the Beltway in D.C., the highways in and around Manhattan, and my personal favorite, the 401 in Toronto has all basically implied that you need to drive them like you sat on a wasp.
It’s just a little interesting as nobody makes left turns like we are browbeaten into learning, the pulling out into the intersection then going left. Now, semi-circles that just make it into the proper lane are the norm. More often than not, you see people taking head starts into their lefts (like that second or two is so important, so vital, we must start to block all other comers).
My favorite new move of late is the bastardized three point turn. We all learned those in Driver’s Ed, and of late, it’s been making a comeback. I see it on Elmwood a lot. The driver pulls almost into a parking space, only to do a glorified “youie” and head in the other direction. Riding low to ground, I go around the block if I got to do that stuff else with my luck I’ll be getting plucked from the grill of an oncoming Hummer.
Sure, the Canadians driving 25 m.p.h. down Genesee make me a little nuts (especially when you know they are filled with joy seeing that 100 sign on the Queen E). I’m not antispeed either, but the false urgency is gonna get somebody hurt.
Mike's Pub 