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American Drivers… Not What I Expected…
Posted by Derek on July 19th, 2007
So, I've been driving around Seattle for a few days now. Mostly to find decent food outlets that sell food that isn't "fast". Something that has surprised me is the driving style of the local motorists here.
Firstly, on the express way, everyone does about 10 mph above the speed limit. In fact, if you stick to the 60 mph limit, you'll most probably get honked a few times and become somewhat of an annoyance to other motorists (even though there's 5 lanes to choose from). Having said this though, I haven't come across many drivers that are excessively speeding on the express way, most vehicles are all doing the average 70 mph. In Oz, there's always a decent number of motorists that are "flying" down the expressway.
Secondly, on the suburban streets, there's not many speed signs. I think the suburban "main" street limit is 35 mph (similar to our 60 kph) and the residential streets 25 mph (similar to our 50 kph). Anyhoo, what I've noticed is extreme caution on behalf of nearly every driver. I stop at a stop sign and the vehicles I'm supposed to be giving way to just sit there and either wait for me or wave me on. It's actually quite frustrating because quite often you get stuck in this "unspoken" deadlock.
"You go."
"No, you go"
"No, I insist, you go"
… and so on.
Thirdly, I've done a little bit of pedestrian travel and have found that as soon as one of my feet hits the roadway all cars in the vicinity stop dead in their tracks and wait for me to cross. Now most of the time I'm not intending on crossing. I may have just stepped onto the road to allow another pedestrian to pass etc. Strange.
Anyway, these are just some of the vexing vehicular events that I've experienced. It's not what I expected.
Anyhoo, back to work.
July 20th, 2007 at 8:08 am
Derek,It was really interesting reading your American Driving. We experienced the same. After waiting at many intersections not sure when to go we visited a police station. We were told that the rule is "first come - first go" and so on. What amazed us was that the locals really abide by this and kno3w who was 1st, 2nd and so on. Trundling around in our motor home, we found this a difficult concept - all these quick cars waiting for us while we were sometimes trying to find out which way we wanted to go.Another thing we found amazing was that on normal highways (one lane each way) the locals would not pass us even though we often drove the motor home below the limit. They would just sit on the back bumper (which we hated) and didn't seem to know how to pass. Too many multi laned highways hasn't taught them the skills we take for granted.FOOD. Everything is BIG!!!!! Even the boxes and bottles in the supermarket. We were trying to buy quantities of some items to last us only six weeks. The stuff we had to dispose of at the end was amazing. The peanut butter was humungous! Norma
July 20th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Norma,
Going to a police station was smart… I hadn't thought of that. Now you mention the "first come - first go" philosophy it all makes sense. It kind of defeats the purpose of "Stop" signs though, really.
Derek