Boston Crazy Driving: May 2006

Masshole extraordinaire

I haven't really used the term Masshole on this site much. Chalk it up to indifference more than anything. I think it has a place in the local lexicon which evokes a specific meaning, but it simply hasn't made its way into my regular vocabulary.

But tonight, that's about the only word I could use to describe a Toyota driver on Route 128.

We were heading south through Needham in the left center lane coming up on the Norfolk County Jail that is in the median (which, BTW, I could never say for sure was a brilliant or insanely idiotic place for a jail) when I spot two cars close together coming up quickly in the left lane. The one trailing gives the one in front a couple flashes of the brights in the universal symbol to get the other driver out of the way. I particularly hate this practice. Imagine standing in line at Dunkin' Donuts only to have some asshole come up behind you and say, "Hey, this line isn't moving fast enough. Let me through so I can get coffee." Actually, I bet that's not so unimaginable around these parts, but I digress.

There is nowhere for the poor guy being flashed to go. He has a line of six or so cars in front of him and a longer line in my lane immediately to his right. All of us are doing about 65 to 70, and we all seem to agree this is an acceptable traveling speed. Seeing the structure of this pocket of congestion, most flashing drivers would do one of two things: either accept his fate as being stuck in the pocket and wait for it to break open; or change lanes and try to find an opening. The latter usually results in some very poor decision making that usually ends up in some form of dangerous driving. The flasher, in tonight's case, kept flashing...and kept flashing. He did it so much, it annoyed me, and I wasn't even in front of the guy. What bugged me so much is that it was clear there was nowhere for him to go. He just had to sit and wait. But he kept right on flashing. Yet, the right two lanes were relatively open, and he could have passed the mini blockage pretty easily

About a mile later, the guy being flashed was able to move over, and the flasher, who I could now see was driving a Toyota Corolla, had climbed right up behind a Ford Explorer. For some reason, the Toyota driver didn't flash the Explorer. Perhaps because the driver knew the Corolla doesn't command much road respect. Instead, he moved in behind the guy he had been harassing before until a spot opened in another lane. Once free, he sped off at top speed, like a Masshole extraordinaire.

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Site change?

I've been here over a year now, and I'm tired of the look and Blogger in general. I don't have vast coding experience to design my own site, and maintaining the links and other bits here isn't entirely easy. I'm also extremely cheap when it comes to this hobby, so I don't wish to pay for hosting or design.

Therefore, I've imported my blog to Wordpress to see what it would be like over there. I will still continue to post here, but I will post there, too. While I'm tired of the limitations of my own lack of experience with HTML, I'm disappointed in the lack of customization allowed by Wordpress. I'm kind of feeling my way around in the dark at the moment.

I would gladly take suggestions, warnings, advice or anything that others with more knowledge would be willing to impart.

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A couple of links

Here's two interesting and entirely unrelated links. The first is from the Guardian Unlimited. It's a commentary on Americans' love of the automobile with some interesting history. It's told from a Brit's perspective.

The second is from the BBC, and tells about how New York's Central Park is going wireless this summer. I'm a bit jealous. Here we are in the midst of the greatest universities the world knows, birthplace of the telephone and the microchip, and the idea of a WiFi hotspot in a Boston park is anathema. This city doesn't even have a dog park!

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I'll believe it when I see it

Another reason for me to remember to bring my camera with me wherever I go. I was in Milton this morning at a stop light at Granite Avenue. Ahead of me was a green Subaru Legacy Outback, and poking out the back seat window was an awesome weimaraner, a breed of slate gray-haired and blue-eyed dogs made famous by Holyoke-born photographer William Wegman. I really admire these dogs, and Mrs. Boston Crazy Driving and I have designs on owning one when Simon the wonder boxer goes across the Rainbow Bridge, as it were.

It wasn't the dog that I wanted to photograph. It was the white bag hanging from the rear window wiper. At first, I thought it was a prank played on the driver by someone, perhaps a friend or mishchievous passerby. Then I looked closely, and realized the driver must have put the white plastic bag there on purpose because it seemed to contain, erm, well, the produce of the dog's digestive system (how's that for a euphemism?). Now that's genius, and not something one sees every day. I was glad to see the owner was kind enough to pick up after the dog, and a bit amused at where the bag got to ride. It's one of those cases where a picture tells the story better than any prose.

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Mass. PIke Closed

There's a tanker rollover on the Mass. Pike that has the toll highway closed in both directions. The Herald has the story here. Channel 7 reported that the tanker was carrying liquid methane.

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Surprise! We're not the worst drivers

The Herald today has a story about a national study that places Boston in fifth place for the rudeness of its drivers. There are several ranking points, such as honking and rude gestures, in which Boston took the top spots.

I don't know how scientific this survey is, or is just another magazine-style ranking such as America's healhtiest city, or place with the most trees. Regardless, I know what I see, and I knew that Boston drivers didn't deserve the reputation as the worst drivers. We're terrible, there's no doubt about it or I wouldn't be able to write this blog, but we aren't the worst. This survey seems to bear me out.

Ed. note: I also think the photo is contrived. I bet it is a reporter driving in traffic leading up to a location of a Herald photographer. I can't remember the last time I saw someone actually climb out of a car window to scream at another driver like the guy in the photo ... esepcially in the rain.

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Where gearhead meets peckerhead

I don't know if someone driving a Ford Fusion can qualify as a gearhead, but in one instance it sure seems OK to call the person a peckerhead.

Someone driving a gold colored one tonight was a chief jerk on the Southeast Distressway. He (for the sake of argument I'll assume the driver was male) got on the Expressway at Columbia Road heading south, and everything he did was an example of why I write this blog, why others write about "Massholes" on their blogs, and why Massachusetts drivers have such a well-earned reputation as aggressive driving jerks.

He comes up the ramp and wedges himself into a lane. This drives me bonkers, and I see it all the time. For some reason there is the mental thing drivers have in Massachusetts that when merging, they must pass as much traffic as possible before merging. It happens at onramps. It happens when lanes are closed and there's a transition from say three to two lanes. Many drivers believe that they must drive until the absolute last possible foot and wedge into traffic rather than find a *safe* opening. I really want to get out and tell the driver that being four cars further ahead isn't really going to make a big difference when the collective speed is maybe 35 MPH.

This guy's wedging in forced a red Chevy Cobalt dangerously into my lane. The Cobalt driver literally had nowhere else to go because the Fusion diver certainly wasn't going to smash his car into the jersey barrier. I jammed on my brakes to let the poor Cobalt driver into my lane.

Once we were all sorted out, the Fusion driver wedged his way between the Cobalt and my car. I had to jam on brakes AGAIN! I gave him a long blast of the horn, and he brake-jobbed me! I hate road rage, but this was building up to a case of one. I changed lanes to avoid this jerk, who by the way, didn't seem to understand the concept of window defogging; or he was driving with Jessica Alba on his lap. I couldn't tell because every window was completely obscured.

The Fusion driver continued this herky-jerky maneuvering until he achieved his goal, getting into the left lane. I don't understand the mentality that the left lane is always the fastest. It usually isn't when there's traffic, especially in Boston.

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Rain and cars

I've long noticed the phenomenon that rain creates traffic jams. I don't know why. It's just rain.

Sure, everyone should slow down because slick roads aren't the place to be testing the 0-60 timing, but I can't understand why it seems that every major highway gets clogged whenever it rains, and for no apparent reason other than it's raining.

Today, in my daily driving reverie, I figured it out: Rain drops make more cars. Silly, I know. But what other explanation can there be? Maybe cars aren't actually steel, rubber and high-density plastic. Maybe they are just a glob of rain drops.

Now, that can't be true, because there are way more cars and traffic is much worse on Route 3 near exits 2 and 1 on sunny summer days.

I'm just glad more and more people are leaving Boston because traffic would be much worse, I guess.

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Unbelievable coincidence

Mrs. Boston Crazy Driving and I went out to celebrate her first Mother's Day on Saturday night witout Crazy Driving fils. He was safely swaddled in the arms of his maternal grandparents while his mom and I enjoyed a lovely red meat dinner at Plaza III in Faneuil Hall. With so many steak places now in Boston for comparison, this one seems like it's a bit on the overpriced side. But the food is worth it, and the restuarant validates parking at 75 State Street, which is right across the street.

On our way home in the pouring rain, we turned left onto Broad Street from the garage exit and as we crossed Water Street, I imparted a little bit of history on my wife (who grew up in the same town as me and is the same age). I told her that Water Street is so named because that is where early Bostonians went to get water. It's a true story. There's a plaque on a wall between Devonshire and Washington streets where Water Street is a nice pedestrian walkway.

In due course, as we came upon Milk Street shortly after, she told me that was where the early Bostonians got their milk. We chuckled the way people do when they make such jokes, until I looked just ahead and saw something in the road. It was a gallon of Hood milk. I am not joking. It may have been empty, and it was lying on its side. The cap was still on. It appeared on Broad Street, almost as if on queue, right in front of the opening to Milk Street.

This is just another reason why I should carry my digital camera with me at all times while driving. I guarantee half the people who read this post won't believe me. But I know it's true.

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Another deadly crash

The woman who died in the wrong-way drunken driving crash on Route 3 was a family friend. I did not know her, but my wife's mother did. I'm told Melissa Leminen was bright, energetic and full of promise. How sad. Patrick Byrne is charged facing murder charges in her death. This is the right charge. Byrne is innocent until proven guilty, but Leminen is dead, and police say it's the result of his actions.

This accident also falls under the state's new drunken driving regulations known as Melanie's Law, which carries with it certain mandatory penalties for people convicted on charges of driving under the influence. Melanie's Law was supposed to prevent more families from having to bear the same tragedy as the family of the adolescent girl for whom the law is named. Hopefully that will be true some day, but right now it seems too many individuals still don't get it. Police logs in newspapers all over the state still show people being arrested for driving under the influence.

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