Current mood:

Suicidal

It's not rocket surgery.
Msnbc.com has a recurring feature, "Ads of the Weird". This week's column discusses an Australian PSA which implies that men who speed are deficient in the sausage department. (I know, I know, a clever idea that no one ever thought of before!)

The comments are full of everyone's Personal Philosophy of Driving, which (like driving itself) turns wanky and obnoxious immediately:

Or maybe people just like to drive fast and it has nothing to do with being macho or manly. Driving fast doesn't mean you have to drive stupid, and I think it's just as likely that people driving BELOW the speed limit cause an equal number of accidents as SOBER drivers driving ABOVE the speed limit. If you don't like someone driving fast behind you, GET OUT OF THE WAY. Especially if you're in the left lane people c'mon, learn how to drive.

John B

Aaaaand they're off. After wading through a couple pages of this, it's enough to make me want to give up driving forever and dust off my trusty old bicycle, rather than chance sharing the road with some of these people.

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rimrunner
2007-07-20 02:58 pm UTC (link)

(Also I'm from Los Angeles, so I drive like a maniac sort of by default. By LA standards I am gentle as a lamb, driving-wise, but I still had to relearn how to drive when I came to Seattle because I was WAY too aggressive. Turn signal does not equal declaration of war, what?)

I'm from Washington, D.C. Same deal. My boyfriend is from Portland and my driving used to terrify him. (I've also been in more accidents in Seattle than I ever was on the east coast.)

I've since moderated my driving habits (especially since I just bought a Prius, which I swear is engineered to get people to drive conservatively). But a few years ago we went to D.C. for Christmas, and took our little four-banger econobox rental on the Beltway.

Five minutes later, boyf says: "NOW I understand why you drive like that."

The scariest traffic I've ever seen is in Thailand. It's amazing: people do all kinds of crazy shit on the roads, yet at the same time they're incredibly polite about it. It seems to work; I was there for two and a half weeks and saw a grand total of one accident the entire time.

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panthea
2007-07-26 04:18 pm UTC (link)

This is typical, everyday traffic in Cairo. My mother lived there till she was 25, and never bothered even trying to learn to drive until she moved to the US. Common sight: four-lane road, five lanes of traffic, motorcycle with family of six on the back zipping inbetween the cars.

They're quite laid-back about it, though. My father was in a fender-bender once while I was visiting him. He and the other driver got out of their cars, checked out the damage, shrugged, got back in their cars, and drove away.

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