Green means go

I don’t care about the color of your skin, if you’re plump or boney, if your hair is red, black, blue, or purple. I don’t care what kind of car you drive, how much rust is on it, or how shiny and clean it is. If you’re a bad driver, you’re a bad driver.

Seattle drivers would not survive on the east coast. You would be run off the road, sworn at, and shown the middle finger so many times you would swear people on the east coast only have one. Your commitment to left lane slow cruising would be challenged by tailgating, light flashing, horn honking, and, if you’re brave enough to look in your rear view mirror, swearing and arm flailing from the driver behind you.

You would start signaling your turns, you would stop slowing down to look for parking spots with blatant disregard for everyone else, you would pass bicyclists in a reasonable amount of time, you would start accelerating when the light turns green, or maybe even before. You would stop getting two inches from the bumper in front of you when it is making a left turn, you would actually go around said left turning vehicle when there is in fact ample room, and you would stop making that left turning driver feel bad simply for turning, while subsequently feeling bad for you for being such an idiot.

Oh, and that’s just the start. Let’s talk about the speed limit. Apparently in Seattle it is just a suggestion. In reality, you don’t need to even get close to the speed limit. I mean, why accelerate if you’re turning in half a mile? Right, it makes no sense to approach the speed limit when you’re just going to use your brakes again soon. Just coast along, going 15 or 20, there is indeed no one else on the road but you.

Ah, I miss the fear inducing lane changes on the Beltway of DC. The sun shining, the cars zooming past me, crossing over eight lanes of traffic to get to my exit. Or driving in Boston during the Big Dig when I actually held my breath, closed my eyes, and hit the gas after waiting to get into traffic for 20 minutes. That is fun driving; that is how you get places and have a good time doing it. Not here. Here I go about two feet before I have to hit the brakes to stop at a red light, for a bicycle, for a pedestrian, for a slow driver, for someone trying to find parking, for someone going well below the speed limit, or for some other, unidentifiable reason. It’s enough to make me not want to get behind the wheel. And that, my friends, is a problem.

Goodbye slow, rocky, cement, rain catering freeways. Hello smooth, asphalt, fast moving, interstates!