Driving....and then some!

I have discovered that my happiness is very dependent on traffic. The less I am in traffic, the happier I am. You can hang your hat on that.

I am pretty well traveled I have experienced many different driving styles from Alabama to Boston; I have driven and been driven all over the United States, Europe, and some Central and South American counties.
There is one thing in common with all traffic – everybody just wants to get there in their own way - with their own methods in mind. That’s just a universal fact since we started moving around eons ago.

Driving in the U.S.A. is boring for the most part. I’m not talking about scenery and majestic cities; I’m talking about the actual act of driving. The roads are in good repair and generally well marked. We are Google Earthed, GPS’ed, and mapped out the ying-yang. Well, it’s just almost too easy. Traffic congestion, removed, of course-that is its own monster. I still get a little shocky when I think about the Belt Parkway in New York and those long, long backups on Rockville Pike in Bethesda, Maryland.

There are however, some minor irritants in the midst of American Drivers and one I will mention here is the left lane driver. You know, you gotta get somewhere, times a ticking, and you’re driving along on a nice four laned highway fully equipped with a middle turn lane, it’s well marked and traffic moves along at a good speed. UNTIL….the 60 mph has suddenly dropped to about 37 mph because some driver in the left lane, who is looking straight ahead, sipping on a Big Gulp and munching Slim Jims, is so totally unaware of the bottleneck he is creating. The guy on your right, who is rightfully going slowly in the slow lane, is riding right along with Mr. Left Lane’s rear bumper and so now you’re trapped. Nowhere to go, no way around….aaarrgggh!!!! It can suck the serenity right out of my best day. Now, I do know a woman who used to get so upset about this, that at the first available chance she got, she would cut around, cut back in front of the offending Mr. Left Lane and make sure they got the signal of her pointing to the right lane in an attempt to “make them aware” and then speed off. In my opinion, if they cared in the first place, they would already be in the right lane so the lesson is mute, plus, aggravating though it may be; it just isn’t worth making an ass of yourself just to prove a point to those who don’t care in the first place.

I lived in Sicily for almost 3 years. That was the most impressively disorganized driving I had ever seen. It is like Santa Claus brought everyone a car for Christmas and they all started driving at once. Another way to describe it is to go outside, kick open an ant hill and watch them run around like crazy. That is driving in Italy for the most part. If I remember correctly, the rules of the road are: 1) if one is going down hill then one has the right of way. After all, the car one is driving may not have brakes, don’t forget to blow your horn as you approach intersections just to let them know you’re coming through and may not have brakes 2) if you flash your lights or blow your horn first, then you have the right of way, (How in the hell would you know who blew a horn first! They all do it all the time!) 3) if your bumper is ahead of the person’s bumper who is ahead of you, then it is NOT your fault….and finally, but not in the least, is rule number 4) if you are going down the road and a goat herd happens to be in the way, and you hit and kill an animal (hope it is an obviously old animal) then you must pay for the animal itself as well as any offspring it may have produced. My question to the court is: How does one calculate how many offspring an animal may produce? What if the goat is gay? Or it happens to "‘ho itself out" just to make a good profit for the herder? How do you make a defense on that?

Now I live in Costa Rica. Driving here is its own monster. There are many cars here in the Central Valley. SUV’s abound, small cars are very, very well used here. Produce trucks, semis, busses and motorcycles of all sizes crowd the two lane streets. There are no multi-laned freeways, the best is a four lane and that is not the norm for most of the highways here. Most streets are mostly marked with lanes and turn signals, sometimes not, and there are potholes galore. As soon as they get it patched it comes right back. Reminds me of when we used to pull weeds out of the farmer’s fields in Alabama- for every pig weed you pulled there were two more waiting to show up overnight!

Driving in Costa is the ugly step sister to an otherwise calm, quiet, reserved culture. I mean Costa Ricans will stand in line at the bank for forty-five minutes to conduct a 3 minute transaction and never make a face or show any sign of impatience. That would be considered rude. But they will run over you in the parking lot, believe-you-me. It is said, that the pedestrian is the most endangered species here. It’s true! People run, I mean even the elderly, will break a trot to get across a street. Cars go so fast and whip around corners like nothing ever could or would happen to be in the way. Just yesterday a little old lady was crossing the street when halfway across, a car whipped by her so fast and close it blew her skirt up. The driver was probably a young man and gave no thought to it what-so-ever. She shook her fist at him - but I can think of another part of her hand she could shake at him!

Another driving habit they have is putting on the flashers and just stopping in an active lane of traffic-maybe to buy produce, maybe to chat on the phone, maybe just because. It makes no sense to me. It causes a lot of inconvenience for the rush hour commuters. It seems dangerous, too especially when a passenger is getting out of a car. But they seem to accept it among themselves. You have to expect some of this type stuff in a city and especially a city with a different cultural environment. Acceptance is the key to serenity......

We all have driving stories to share and when I think of all the close calls that occur each and every day, well it amazes me how me made it this far. Sometimes you just have to wonder. We keep complaining about the other guy and what an idiot he/she is and we shake our heads and wonder how the law can let some of these yahoos run around loose. But we keep moving around and always will. Be safe!