Oh. My. God. City drivers in the snow are TERRIBLE! HORRIBLE!! Absolutely, completely atrocious beyond any sense of decency. They’re so bad, it’s not even funny how bad they are. And believe me, crappy drivers are hilarious. Usually.
Up here in New England, we are in the midst of our first major snowstorm. By all accounts, it’s really not that bad. 5-8 inches total predicted, with maybe 4 inches or so on the ground right now. Yes, it is coming down hard, but there is not very much on the GROUND.
I needed food, as our refrigerator is even more empty than usual. So I decided to drive to my local Shaw’s to pick up something tasty. Now, my local Shaw’s is VERY local. So local that if I wasn’t quite as averse to walking as I am, I’d probably just walk there on a regular basis. I really cannot stress how CLOSE and NOT FAR AT ALL this Shaw’s is from my house.
I turned down my street, and all looked well. My trusty Blizzaks didn’t bat an eye going up my driveway, despite the 4 inches of snow. Then I took a right. Bad choice. I should have taken a left, looped around the block, and gone home. You see, for some reason (I blame inept drivers), traffic was at a complete standstill on EVERY street between me and Shaw’s. Now, I’m new to city life, and in my naivety I figured that while it would take slightly longer than normal, I’d have no problem getting to Shaw’s as soon as I crossed the main street. WRONG! The next intersection would literally be a dead standstill for about 4 minutes, and then 1 car would be able to move. And in Massachusetts, we don’t believe in sensible laws like not blocking an intersection. So, despite the fact that the road on the opposite side of the intersection was completely stopped and had no indication of moving anytime soon, drivers would inch their way into the intersection and stop. COMPLETELY IN THE INTERSECTION. They didn’t even make and to attempt get out of the way, some of them leaving 4 feet of space between them and the car in front of them. Finally, I gave up, and decided to just head back to my apartment. This was much easier said than done, as now I had to deal with all of the same intersections again to head home.
Normal time to get Shaw’s: 3 minutes.
Time today to abort going to Shaws: 30 minutes.
Unbelievable.
on December 13, 2007 at 8:16 pm Richard C. wrote:
You are completely right. Then they honk at each other as if that will help. I live right on Comm. ave and saw the traffic backed up for hours. Actually, right now at 8:14 it’s still as backed up going into the city as it was hours ago. Empty going out though.
on December 13, 2007 at 9:09 pm Noah wrote:
Actually, I found the horn to be the most useful tool in my arsenal. It worked best when you were only 1 or 2 cars away from the intersection. That and some not-so-subtle bumper nudging got people to move and yield as fast as they could.