Can you imagine how early motorists must have felt when they climbed into those first automobiles and roared off at 20 miles an hour? Yikes! Compared to travel by horse and buggy 20 mph must have felt insanely fast.
The 21st Century equivalent of that seems to be Indian and Oriental drivers pulling out in American city traffic and whizzing along at 30 mph, or blasting down the freeway at a breakneck 50 mph. K is always fussing at me to be more understanding, but I say they need to learn to use the tall, skinny pedal on the right.
If as far as I can see there are cars going 70, and then I see traffic standing on their brakes and swerving all over the road to get around someone doing 50, I see that as a dangerous nuisance. And 9 times out of 10 it's an Indian or Oriental driver causing all the chaos. I see it every day. I have no idea why they're so speed averse. I suppose that's just the normal way to drive back in their birth country. Here it will get someone killed.
I certainly don't mean to sound racist here, but many of our new immigrant friends apparently don't know our "rules of the road". I think before anyone gets behind the wheel they need to know more than what's in some silly handbook. Does drivers ed teach how to merge into traffic? Do they teach that if you pull out into traffic in front of another car you need to get up to speed fast, or better still, WAIT until there is an adequate gap in traffic? Or that if you're in a lane marked "Right Lane Must Turn Right", YOU MUST TURN RIGHT?
To confirm I'm not just imagining this, I heard on the news yesterday that according to Men's Health magazine Dallas has the 2nd worst drivers in the country. (Only St. Louis has worse.) I concur.
S
I get 20 out of my golf cart and still feel like a maniac driving it everywhere...I like it better than my gas powered vehicles.
ReplyDeleteIt might be a cultural thing. It does seem like Asians (particularly women) tend to drive slow. I consider myself a poor driver so I don't want to throw stones, but it's too bad these slower drivers don't stay in the far right lane where they (and I include myself)belong.
ReplyDeleteI like to drive at speed i.e. the limit or maybe 10-15 mph over on the highway, but I tend to be cautious in urban driving. At work I drive a 10 ton truck, so planning my turns and stops well in adavance just comes naturally :-)
ReplyDeleteBut in my car, I make merges onto a freeway at better than matching speed.
I am a speed demon. I really need to get some sort of 4 horsepower vehicle to reign me in. When I used to drive around the University of Cincinnati campus I noticed that the asian drivers did seem terribly cautious - and you're right, it's just an observation. And it's pretty bad when the speed limit is 25 & they're going 10 miles UNDER it :)
ReplyDeleteoh, you'd love driving in MY country! Except where necessary, NO speed limits! AND, if you're slow and don't stay in the right lane, you could get a ticket! My fastest? 220 km/h while driving on an empty Autobahn! lol
ReplyDelete