boston drivers.
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If there is a hell, I hope there is a special
level reserved just for Boston drivers. Somewhere tucked between
the child molesters and the pools of flaming excrement.
Now of course I'm not talking about all Boston drivers...the term is reserved specifically for the one or two out of ten who exhibit the trademark rudeness that New England is known for, that ultra-aggressive me-first mentality that makes Donald Trump look like Ned Flanders in comparison. So I'm sitting at a stop sign at a busy intersection, waiting to turn left onto a busy four-lane road. It's rush hour, so traffic is heavy; what's worse is it's only a two-way stop, so I'm looking for that ever-elusive coincidence of gaps in both directions. The jerk in the pickup truck behind me is impatient, and starts to honk. Fine; he can honk all he wants, but I'm not getting T-boned on his account. When I finally see a break big enough to squeeze through, I gun it - only to be cut off and nearly forced into oncoming traffic by the guy in the truck, who has decided to pass me on the right from a dead stop so he can make the left turn. There is a word for people like this, which I can't print here because my mother has finally figured out how to navigate the web. I'll give you a clue, though: seven letters, Denis Leary is proud to be one. Here's something else that irks me, which happens to me on a regular basis. I'm waiting at a stoplight. Cars coming the other way have a green arrow and are turning left in front of me. My light turns green and ... two, three, four, FIVE! more cars come through. Taking into account the delay between their red and my green, six or seven cars have just run the red light. Where's a cop when you need one? So much for the myth of Puritan discipline in New England...maybe all these people are just taking their revenge on the priests who abused them when they were little by thumbing their nose at the law. It's funny how New Englanders can be just as provincial as the redest-necked hick from south Georgia. The roads here are so wretched that they both bring out the worst in people and naturally engender a locals-only mentality. Once you learn your way from point A to point B, you internalize the details - slip into the right lane as you pass Mt. Auburn so you can make the turn onto Arlington and then onto Armory, watch out for the big pothole in the center of 28 just after you pass Broadway - but the locals here have neither patience nor sympathy for someone passing through for the first time who doesn't know which lane to be in to get through the rotary without having to go around twice. Let me tell you, nothing says 'classy' like a Boston driver laying into his horn, giving someone the finger, and shouting a friendly obscenity out the window. They may not have true rednecks up here, but they sure do have white trash. |