Miami road hogs will drive you crazy
Everyone thinks that the drivers in their town are the worst in the world. Me, I have a special place in my own personal Hell for Houston drivers. These morons believe that turn signals are optional equipment-it's not THEIR responsibility to avoid other drivers. For this reason alone, I've seriously considered mounting a machine gun turret in the bed of my F-150. THAT ought to get their attention....
Listen, I understand that this is a point of civic honor, and I am sure that the drivers in your city are all homicidal morons. But trust me when I tell you that there is no way they can compete with the team that Miami puts on the road.
I know what I'm talking about. I have driven in every major U.S. city, including Boston, where the motorists all drive as though there is an open drawbridge just ahead, and they need to gain speed so they can jump across it. I have also driven in Italy, where there is only one traffic law, which is that no driver may ever be behind any other driver, the result being that at all times, all the motorists in the nation, including those in funeral processions, are simultaneously trying to pass.
I have ridden in a taxi in the Argentine city of Mar Del Plata (literally, "Cover Your Eyes''), where (a) nobody ever drives slower than 65 miles per hour, including inside parking garages, and (b) at night, many motorists drive with their headlights off, because -- a taxi driver told me this, and he was absolutely serious -- this extends the life of your bulbs. (When he told me this, we were in a major traffic jam caused by an accident involving a truck and a horse.)
I have also ridden on a bus in China, plowing through humongous traffic snarls involving trucks, cars, bicycles, ox-drawn carts and pedestrians, all aggressively vying for the same space, and where the bus driver would sometimes physically push pedestrians out of the way. I don't mean with his hands. I mean with the BUS.
My point is that I have seen plenty of insane driving techniques, and I am telling you for a fact that no place brings so many of these techniques together as Miami, where a stop sign has no more legal significance to most motorists than a mailbox. The police down here have given up on enforcing the traffic laws. If they stop you and find a human corpse in your trunk, they'll let you off with a warning, if it's your first one.
So I've seen pretty much everything on the roads here. Nevertheless, I was surprised by the driver on the interstate the other night. I heard him before I saw him, because his car had one of those extremely powerful sound systems, in which the bass notes sound like nuclear devices being detonated in rhythm. So I looked in the mirror and saw a large convertible with the top down overtaking me at maybe 600 miles per hour. I would have tried to get out of his path, but there was no way to know what his path was, since he was weaving back and forth across five lanes (out of a possible three).
Fortunately, he missed me, and as he went past, I got a clear view of why he was driving so erratically: He was watching a music video. He was watching it on a video screen that had been installed where the sun visor usually goes, RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS FACE, blocking his view of the road.
I don't want sound like an old fud, but this seems to me to be just a tad hazardous. I distinctly recall learning in Drivers Education class that, to operate a car, you need to be able to see where the car is going, in case the need arises (You never know!) to steer.
So there you have it. Just when you think that no one or no place can produce drivers more ignorant, self-centered, or just plain rude...well, try to remember that there is always someplace worse. Unless, of course, you live in Miami....
