Gosh, all these horror stories about being cut off deliberately, people
getting out to pound on your car, guns, make me glad I live in a
civilised place - New Jersey! The Turnpike and Rte 80 generally move
about 70-75 mph, in 55 as well as 65 mph zones (can't say the same for
the northern stretches of the Garden State Parkway, with toll barriers
every 5 miles). Nothing outrageous, because all the natives know there
could be a crushing traffic jam just over the next rise. Occasionally
you'll get cut off a little close, but not from malice, rather a desire
on the part of the cutting driver to go fast. We all drive sports cars.
We can identify with that!
Sure, every now and then there'll be someone sitting in the passing lane
going way too slow and tying up traffic, and the blood pressure will go
up a few points per mile, but 9 times out of 10 they're from a
neighboring state (the big one with the white plates with the red
lettering and a picture of the Statue of Liberty, OUR statue - yeah, you
know who you are - what do they do, teach you to hog the left lane in
Driver's Ed? - donning Nomex now). We natives just take turns passing
them on the right, perhaps making an appropriate hand gesture as we go
by, and that's the end of it.
BK
|