Just remember, the Boston streets are in alphabetical order, for at least 3
blocks....Rumour has it that they were laid out by chasing a drunk cow
around. In case you want to check: Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon,
Dartmouth, Exeter, Fairfield, Gloucester...
jm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph McAllister" <[email protected]>
To: "Pentax-Discuss Mail List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 7:51 PM
Subject: Re: OT: Boston Drivers (was New Jersey Drivers (Was nutty
Norwegians))
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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