You may have heard the fables of Boston drivers. They are considered as the most aggressive drivers within America’s borders. You just follow one simple rule: If there is an open space, take it, or surrender it. Accidents are caused by tourists who does not understand that simple rule, and find themselves upside down on top of parked cars, after being shoved aside by a taxi cab.
America is unique in its aspect of car driving, due to its inherent large size. In Florida, you’re encountering older (and much slower) drivers intermixing with tourists taking left turns from the right lane. In Pennsylvania, you’re dodging horse buggies intermixing with tourists who stop for little ducks. In Phoenix, you’re hightailing it through town at 20 over, passing bewildered tourists.
Seattle. Well, we all know about their reputation for rain. For example, this morning, I was driving down I-5, and it was pouring (as usual), with the special effect of having a lot of water splashing upward from the multitude of vehicles on the road. Today was the day you actually would not see motorcycles and cyclists on Seattle roads… maybe. It was that bad.
I observed one interesting aspect of Seattle drivers. You see, in the rest of the states, when it rains, by habit, you would turn on your car lights. In some car models, they automatically turn it on when you trigger the window wipers, just to keep us fat and lazy. But here, in Seattle, it is different. If it’s somewhat bright out there enough for you to not be able to see your own car lights, Seattle drivers somehow conclude that turning on car lights would gain them the ire of Al “I pay $2,000 a month on electricity” Gore. So to conserve their energy, they keep their lights off.
Visibility to 25 yards without light is not fun, especially at 60 mph (funny enough, Seattle drivers don’t slow down in the rain either). Turning on the lights would increase visibility to about a quarter mile today, and us tourists did the honorable deed for our own safety. Some of us did slow down a bit. Seattle drivers not only kept their “honorable” 60 mph pace — the speed limit on the road in question — but also kept their lights off to conserve energy. One can only wonders if they keep their wipers at a very low pace — after all, gas be expensive, yo!
Listen, you silly Seattlites – TURN YOUR LIGHTS ON WHEN IT IS RAINING! In other words, KEEP IT ON ALL THE TIME, SINCE IT IS RAINING ANYWAY!
There.
