One of the easiest things to do as a stand-up comedian is to enter a new city and tell the audience how bad the drivers are in that city. It’s sure to get a positive reaction, because there are bad drivers everywhere. Now I’ve lived in New York and I’ve lived in Boston (where we sell T-shirts to tourists saying “I survived Boston traffic”), but by far the worst drivers are in North Carolina.
I live in a small town and I’ve co-opted a quote from the forces to describe driving conditions here – it’s not a job, it’s an accident! Now, the automobile is the way of life in North Carolina because there is virtually no mass transit here. Kids have a license at 16 and counting days to the birthday month ahead of time, just waiting for 8 – a year old at Christmas for the day they can finally drive.
You would think it would create a culture that encouraged good drivers. Sadly, no. Young drivers are as careless and reckless here as in any other state in the union. But I can’t put all the blame for North Carolina’s bad drivers on the state’s youth. If anything, it’s the middle-aged and seniors who cause the most problems. This is if illegal aliens who can’t read the signs break and generally follow their own driving rules Going through
In the last 20 years there has been an explosion of Hispanic populations in small rural towns in North Carolina. Most of this is good. But it’s not a comforting sight when the old truck weaves merrily along, with eight horses on no chain. They seem blissfully unaware of their fate as I fear that the driver is about to swerve and I will end up with Pedro, Jose and Juan on my front windshield.
The main problem with drivers in North Carolina is that you can’t predict bad roads. In Boston you could count on bad drivers doing things aggressively. You would see a car waiting to turn left and if there was even the slightest break in traffic from the opposite direction, you could predict that a bad driver (ex-staters would call them Massholes) would turn around, forcing all of this. cars for the disabled in the target to avoid an accident. If the light turns yellow, you will count people so you can speed up and maybe there are more people to run the light. It is accepted practice in Boston that when the light turns green, despite what it says on every driver’s license plate in the country, the first car to finish on the left has the right of way.
But in North Carolina, bad drivers are nothing but crooks. Drivers here don’t want to use turn signals and are lax about keeping the lights in working order, so you often have to anticipate when someone is going to turn. Which becomes even more difficult when most drivers are talking on their cell phone and you wonder where they are or what you learn on the road. nevertheless.
Perhaps the most important when cell phone drivers have an idea of what is a safe following distance or vehicles in front. Multi-car accidents are becoming more common, not because there are too many cars on the road, but because drivers are doing everything but paying attention to the road while driving.
Most of the major streets in North Carolina have an interchange in the middle of the road for both directions. This often creates problems, as drivers have more options in which to drive to the wrong side with this extended stretch.
Some motorists use the turning lane as the passing lane, a practice made all the more dangerous by the decision not to use the directional signs on either side. Other drivers take the turn lane way too early and then get confused when the car on the other side is right waiting for their chance to turn. But my favorite is with older drivers who haven’t quite grasped the concept of road traction. They will stand in the regular traffic lane and then turn in the opposite lane and then turn in the opposite lane, when the turn is executed on the left.
But the interstate highway system is a challenge that many North Carolina drivers have yet to master. An interstate will have two or more lanes, with the general idea being that if you want to go slow, you stay in the right lane and go farther than you want to go faster. The system is good and works well in 49 other states. But I worry that I have someone traveling below the speed limit in the far left lane. At first, I thought these drivers would do some real life testing to see what the effects of 55 mph in the left lane on a 65 mph road would be. But then I soon realized that they were pagans.
There’s an old joke about a guy who runs through every red light because his brother taught him how to do it. Finally it comes to a green light and stops. A passenger asks him why he stopped at the light after going through the entire redlight before and he says, “Because my brother he must be driven out today.” That’s how to drive in North Carolina.
