Tourist's Guide to Driving Around Washington DC

[anotheranon]

Last one for today, I promise! From Kuro5hin, I can vouch for most of this being absolutely true. Except the turn signal thing - I always use mine and I'm NOT a tourist. Just remember, If it's 30 degrees, it's Orioles' opening day. If it's 100 degrees, it's the 'Skins opening day. If the humidity is 90+ and the temperature is 90+, then it's May,June,July,August and sometimes September.

Comments

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

LOL!!!! I've lived in the various-sized cities of London, Goderich (where the streets are in a spider-web design, all meeting at a three-lane circle road that surrounds city hall ... this is called "The Square", even though it is round), Lethbridge, and now Calgary (plus done a lot of driving in Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge and some in Ottawa and Toronto). This describes ALL of them, except for Lethbridge, which, because it only has two one-way streets, which is not enough to confuse people, substitutes "if a driver half a block behind you sees you signalling to change into his/her lane, they will floor it and burn out their engine to block you from doing so because they'd all rather DIE than have another vehicle in front of them." :p

Plus, according to the U.S. State Dept., Canada is extra dangerous for drivers. ***grin***

[nminusone.livejournal.com]

> "if a driver half a block behind you sees you signalling to
> change into his/her lane, they will floor it and burn out their
> engine to block you from doing so because they'd all rather DIE
> than have another vehicle in front of them."

Signalling to change?!?!? Didn't they read Sun Tzu? The great warrior must appear formless and void, so that the enemy can never guess your true intentions beforehand. If you do signal, you should do it to confuse or trick the enemy. People down here follow that principle pretty well, sadly. Fortunately they're pretty transparent in other ways, so it's still pretty easy to see what they're going to do most times. (hint: Whatever would be most obnoxious.)

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

The Sun Tzu readers must have been my co-commuters on Scenic Drive (named for the view of the distant Rockies visible along its entire length) ... it's a winding, serpentine street that runs from downtown to the southeast edge of the city. During the nearly twenty years I lived there I saw a lot of drivers flick on their turn signals every time they rounded a curve in the road (no intersections or lane changes involved). Another common western Canadian technique is to come to a full stop at all intersections, as if they are four-way stops, even if there are only stop signs on the intersecting street or the traffic lights are green. :p

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

This actually sounds like my dad. When I learned in high school driver's ed that when you're being passed you're supposed to slow down to make it easier. He looked at me quizzically and asked, "You're supposed to LET people pass you?" He was only half joking :P