I am very pleased to see that others are taking the heat that used to
be born by the sainted drivers of Boston, Mass.
Until rustproofing became something more than spraying oil and wax on
the bottom of your car every year, and snow removal no longer
consisted of raw salt being spread on the roads every other day all
winter, most every New England car consisted of steel lace from the
top of the wheel wells down to the missing rocker panels.
In this condition, Bostonians (and most New Englanders) cared nothing
for any damage done to their cars at intersections, especially those
known as "round-a-bouts" or traffic circles, an architectural holdover
from Europe, mainly Italy, where they were also considered a sport
having nothing to do with traffic control. The general rule was they
who had a fender the furthest into an intersection had the right of
way. Very sporting.
It was in this environment, covered with ice and snow, or foot deep in
slush, with few if any street signs telling you where you actually
were, and no road that was anywhere near straight (transportation
terraforming we'd call it now days), that I learned to navigate like
pigeons, using the earth's magnetic field to determine if I should
turn right or left, or which road to veer into off of a round-a-bout,
all the while keeping my speed up for fear of getting stuck in a ditch
or pile of slush left by the omnipresent county snow plows,
supplemented by hundreds of farmers with pickup mounted plows clearing
driveways for $2-$7 a pop, not a one coordinating where to leave the
at times mountain-like dirty piles of snow that would remain until
spring.
At 14, I learned to drive in my mother's 47 Plymouth sedan, sneaking
out after everyone was asleep, and testing my skills through the
countryside between towns. I learned to complete curves at higher than
normal speeds by hitting the snow banks on either side of the road at
just the right angle to alter my trajectory to be in the middle of the
road at the exit of the curve. Miscalculation either left you in the
snow on the opposite side of the road, or buried in the bank you tried
to slingshot. The post-war steel fenders were never damaged that
winter, being a tank-like thickness. You also had to know which
snowbanks hid the traditional New England (English/Irish) stone walls
built from the annual harvest of granite that appeared when the snow
melted off your fields every spring. Rather than damage your plow, the
stones were carried to the edge of the fields and stacked. The walls
would dent the fenders, for sure.
On one particular Friday afternoon after school, southern New
Hampshire roads having been blessed by a heavy snowstorm dumping a
couple of feet of snow, I set off with a few buddies to go skiing for
the weekend. The roads had had their "first plowing" leaving a semi-
hard packed 4 to 6 inched of bright white snow. At one point, after
traveling many miles using the "go fast downhill so you can make it to
the crest of the next hill" technique, I topped a large hill and saw
before me two cars stuck getting up the hill towards me, at 45 degree
angles, drivers digging snow or spreading sand in an attempt to
extricate themselves, and three cars on the opposite slope in similar
circumstances, one of which was actually stuck in the snowbank on the
other side of the road. One of my companions noted that it looked like
our travel was stopped until we could get all these cars on their way
again. (Pennsylvania drivers take note - you have the same hills, but
straight roads)
"Nope," I said. "I can make it." So I sounded my horn to alert,
turned up the AM radio to it's anemically loud level, engaged second
gear of my father's 56 Ford Fairlane 4 dr. sedan with a small V-8
(wheels spun if you tried first gear, so you slipped the clutch in
second or third) and started down the hill on the wrong side, shifting
into 3rd before I got to the bottom, and feathering the gas to
maintain traction as I started to pull the hill. Half way up I had to
hit the snowbank on between the two cars on my side of the road to
ricochet around the car sideways on the opposite side of the road,
grabbing 2nd gear at the same time, my foot shaking in my effort to
not give the car any more gas that the rear "snow" tires could take,
nudging the snowbank of the left side of the road for stability, and
still make the top of the grade. Which I did, at 5 mph in second, and
on our way we went.
Now that's a Boston driver, circa 1958!
On May 6, 2009, at 14:10 , frank theriault wrote:
On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 2:59 PM, William Robb <[email protected]> wrote:
Nope. I hail from the region of Canada that has the worst drivers
in the
country.
We don't use turn signals.
We don't shoulder check.
We either drive 15km/hr over the speed limit of 15km/hr under,
unless we are
on the highway, in which case it's 30km/hr under.
We have no idea what the left lane is for, but we are sure that
we'll want
to turn left at some point, so we'd better stay in it (and travel
15-30km/hr
under the speed limit).
We don't use mirrors (though some ladies do use the vanity mirror for
applying make-up, generally while travelling 15-30km/hr under the
speed
limit in the left lane).
Yellow lights create a Pavlovian response in us towards the gas
pedal.
We are red/green colour blind.
We aren't close enough to the car in front until we can't see the
tail
lights.
Stop signs are just a suggestion.
We are tough, we yield to no one.
You see a pedestrian on a sidewalk, we see a moving target.
You see a pedestrain in a crosswalk, we see a moving target wearing a
bullseye.
No on told us that the game of points for whacking pedestrians
isn't really
a game.
Every one has right of way, the person who has the nicest car
yields (our
one tip of the hat to defensive driving).
Good times.
You moved to Toronto? And you didn't tell me? (not that I blame you)
cheers,
frank - from the ~real~ home of Canada's worst drivers
Joseph McAllister
[email protected]
http://gallery.me.com/jomac
http://web.me.com/jomac/show.me/Blog/Blog.html
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