Crazy Boston Drivers

Every single day that Bunny and I make it home without harm coming upon either her or me, I thank my lucky stars. Because, you see, every single person who drives a car in the Boston area is a raving lunatic. The drivers are not helped by the pile of spaghetti that is the infrastructure and the fact that signage and lane markings are apparently optional and only used casually. My theory is, if you don't know where you are, they don't want you there.

Here's the accident I saw today: We're all driving around a rotary near Harvard. Two lanes. Not clearly marked, of course, but everyone knows it's two lanes right there. The green car in front of me started gravitating over to the left lane, into the space currently occupied by the front of a pretty prominent minivan. Both cars were going about 15mph, and in my head I just assumed green car would notice minivan and self correct, especially since green car and minivan had already been driving next to each other for a half mile, so unless minivan did a little Star Trek transporter move, green car should have realized minivan was still there. But no. Green car continued to go left and, in the slowest accident in history, grazed the front of minivan as the driver of minivan laid on the horn. Both cars stopped and the front bumper promptly FELL OFF the minivan.

What? How could the slowest accident in history make a bumper fall off? My assumption is that the bumper was a casualty of previous accidents and was hanging on by a thread.

I have been in one accident here, but my roommate was driving and I was just a passive observer. That was a stupid accident too. We were leaving the grocery store and had been stopped in one spot in the parking lot for about 30 seconds when the car perpendicular to us just backed up right into Jenn's car. Which basically means the guy pulled out without looking behind him at all because we had been there for a bit.

And then there are those people who are just begging for an accident. I discovered long ago that when being tailgated in Boston, it does no good to lightly tap your brakes in a "please stop following me so closely because if I have to stop suddenly we will both be grievously injured" kind of way. All tapping the brakes does is tick them off and make them get even closer to you. So now I take great pleasure in driving gradually slower, watching in my rear view mirror as the drivers get more and more agitated. OR, as I did today on the highway, say to them "There is a lane on either side of me and you could use either one to go around me. I am NOT changing lanes just so you can go 75 when I'm already going 70 in a 55." And, yes, I do say this out loud. Got to keep myself entertained.

My point is, the drivers here are insane. And I am one of them. I have become the most wicked awesome defensive driver you ever did see. If I ever tried to drive in Tucson again, those snowbirds wouldn't know what hit them. I'd get the finger a lot, I bet.

80 laps today, set of 40 (19:15 boo hiss - I hate it when I go slower), AND butterfly