Traffic

Up to just a couple of years ago, we lived in the Northeast. I always considered the Yankees the worst drivers in the world. Recently, we moved to the South and I am beginning to change my mind.

What the Yankees are doing behind the wheel is simply in line with what they are doing all the time: fighting for the time they need to do the things they must do. They have so many important things to do, they can't waste their time driving around. The tricks they perform with their cars are the equivalent to extreme sports. Of course, some time they loose and spend more time than they were able to save during the past years of driving.

Before we moved here, we came visiting. Often, we observed tricks performed on the road by drivers in cars with local license plates and my wife would point it out to me, saying that 'down here' the drivers are just the same as 'up there. I always replied that these are not really locals; they are displaced persons from the Northeast.

I am sure that there are many displaced Yankees in my new neighborhood, but while driving here for over two years I have become aware of some nuances in style that makes the southern driver uniquely individual.

For instance: it is often more expedient to drive in the right lane, because no other car uses it. Cars shoot out of a side road and immediately head for the left lane and stay there, give or break. If traffic slows down, or stops, long lines form up in the left lane and one can cruise up to the light and gain the pole position without fighting for it.

If you drive legal speed (well, legal plus five, for example) you never need to pass anybody. Even tractors and combines are usually faster than you and pass you in the left lane. That, of course, does not cover tractor trailers. Very often, you find them banned from the left lane and then they come thundering down on you from behind and you almost have to hit the brakes because the air they push ahead of them will move you faster than legal speed. Of course, these truckers are on a mission and cannot waste any time. So I sometimes move into the left lane to let them pass. It is easier for me to switch lanes that it is for them. They give me a short blast with their horn as a thank-you.

Locals also will often put themselves in your slip stream so you can't see anything in your rear-view mirror but their hood with a part of their grill underneath. But they don't call this tail gating, which is illegal. Dow here, they call it drafting. That, of course, is a method of driving behind another car, close up, not to gain more speed but to save some gas. They do that on NASCAR tracks. Even there, they sometimes miss the exact position of the bumper of the car in front of them and this usually results in a spectacular blow-out. But that's just for fun. After a blow-out on a public road, everybody has time to hang around for hours to see what develops. Of course, there is also no place to go, with all the lanes clogged with spectators.

This latter part is not in any way specific to the South. They do it up there the same way. With the exception of driving in the left lane while the right lane(s) are empty. Of course, in the Northeast there is no space to choose from in any lane. You have to take what you can get. You also can't choose your speed up there. If you try to be slower than the general traffic, you simply get pushed off the road. There is no point to try to be faster. There is simply no room to pass.

It is interesting to observe that police cars follow the same rule: use the left lane for driving, stay off the right lane. Of course, given the opportunity, police cars are also much faster than other cars, even if they have no blinking lights going to indicate that they are on a mission.

Talking about those blinking lights: recently I witnessed three patrol cars coming up behind me with lights flashing and cleaning out the left lane and passing everybody and once they got past the clot on the road they coolly switched their lights off and cruised in peace up to the next slower clot. They did not drive at a speed as if they had to catch up with some 'incident'.

Of course, all that talk about 'left lane' applies to highways with at least two lanes coming and two lanes going. But I know you understood that. Driving on two-lane country roads is almost like driving in Vermont. Vermont allows crossing the solid yellow line (even if it double) to pass another slower vehicle, if the oncoming lane is free. Here, using the left lane, even on a simple two-lane country road with a double yellow line in the middle appears to be viewed as a constitutional right. That's one of the reasons why I mentioned 'extreme sports' before. Sometimes, cars lock horns that way. You can read about that in the paper almost every week.

When we settled here, we had to go through the whole rigmarole of administrative procedures. Including a drivers test. It does feel funny to take a drivers test with the questions asked by someone who got old enough to start driving legally just last month. But we did it and passed with flying colors including questions about the meaning of road signs that are shown only in shape -- no color, no text. I am wondering if perhaps the authorities are contemplating improving their maintenance budget by abandoning maintenance of the road signs. Everybody takes these test, which also include a detailed list of laws of the road. But these laws, down here, are offered more like suggestions. They cannot be mandatory, because one may forget these rules immediately after the tests. About 90% of the testees do just that. That leads to some very interesting situations on the road.

That testing is unique down here. Up there, you show your license you got in the State where you came from and you get your new local license. They only take a new picture and ask you if you want to use your social security number or a State provided easy-pick ID number. I think driver-testing up there is not done because driving there is a fight for survival. If you survive, you have ample proof that you can drive with sufficient skill. It would be impossible for any driver school to train you in the situations you will encounter on the road. Well, if the money were available to set up a trainer, like what pilots use before they take a real airplane off the ground?

Down here, driving is not so much a matter of skill, but a matter of luck. I've seen the mail delivery man aiming at my front, driving down on his left lane to meet me on my right lane on a country road. He was off with his timing though. He missed me.

Another thing that binds the Yankees with the Southerners is the use of direction signals. Neither group of drivers uses them. Possibly, when they bought the car, the salesman forgot to tell them where the switch is and what it is used for. The same thing with the switch used to dim the headlights at night. Sometimes, at night, a car will move up on my right shoulder with the headlights up and glaring the living daylight out of my eyes. Once he reaches that position just behind and to the left, he won't pass. Sometimes I can manipulate the left rear-view mirror to throw the light back at him. Then he passes, at last.

About direction signals: one time I drove behind a UPS truck to work. Fate wanted it that he made every turn that I had to make and even drove to the same business building. He never used a blinker to signal any of his turns and two of the three brake lights did not function. We parked in the same paring lot and met in the elevator. I said "Do you know that your blinkers don't work in the rear?". He looked at me as if I had asked him about the molecular weight of Hydrogen. He clearly did not know what I was talking about. Then I said "Do you know that two out of your three brake lights don't work?". "Oh, he said, "they take care of that at the garage." This was early morning, mind you, he must have just come from the garage.

I slowly came up to the idea that I don't need to be first, up front of the pack. As a matter of fact, I found that if I get ahead of one pack, I simply drive up behind another. Somebody else will always be in front and fighting to change that is pointless. So I drive coolly down the right lane at legal speed plus five, or so. I don't even wonder what names some other drivers call me, but I can guess fairly close by the gestures some of them make. Then I feel bad. Clearly, my driving has a negative effect on the national economy. Just think what those people behind me could achieve, while I'm trundling along, comfortably, with normal blood pressure.

Have a safe and happy cruise, y'all.