Curt -
Faith: that the other drivers will stay on their side of the road.
I love this one... we all hurtle down the highway with order 4000lbs at
relative speeds of order 120mph, within feet if not inches of eachother,
trusting implicitely that we will not become kinetic energy bombs. Only
when we go to British Commonwealth (or related) countries do we even get
confronted with this.
I just spent 3 weeks in Italy where while everyone drives on the same
side of the road I'm familiar with, they also use only their accelerator
pedals and ignore both their brake pedals and their rear view mirrors.
Once I gave over to the concept that everyone else on the road was
(mostly) competent and that none (very very few) were likely malicious,
I was able to drive quite effectively, trusting that a nearly totally
unfamiliar driving style worked just fine if I joined the milieu with
similar levels of assertiveness and care.
- Steve
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