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
