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The following was derived from personal observations or
from stories by colleagues that commute in the Boston area. Boston drivers are very aggressive, and this author thought it would be
satirical to list some of these observations.
It can be debated that Boston's commuters have the best driving
skills in the world due to the constraints and culture here.
In General
1. Making eye contact usually means you yield the right of way.
2. Yield signs are often incorrectly interpreted as hit the gas in
Boston.
3. Stop signs mean stop, but many people believe they
can be interpreted as roll slowly instead of making a full stop.
4. In a rotary or traffic circle, the vehicles already in the circle have the
right of way, but many drivers ignore this rule when entering.
5. Right on red after stop is legal unless otherwise marked, but most drivers do not
stop. Many rear-end collisions happen due to this.
In The City
1. Look both directions before entering an intersection. Green lights
are supposed to mean it is safe to proceed, but not always.
2. Brush up on your parking skills if you plan to park along the
curb anywhere in the city. The parked vehicles may be inches apart.
3. Because of the Big Dig, signs, lanes, street direction, and off ramps may
change without notice, with the predecessor signs randomly remaining in place.
4. Leave as much space as possible between you and the vehicle in
front of you. Pedestrians often dart out in front of vehicles.
5. Gridlock occurs daily during rush hour. Cars may stop in the middle
of crosswalks to irritate pedestrians, or block the most important
intersections in the downtown.
6. One can often see vehicles blocking the left-only lane at red
lights, as they expect a lane-jumper to run the left-only lane and be the
first vehicle to cross the intersection.
7. In the city neighborhoods, late on a Friday or Saturday night in summer,
one-way streets may become two-way streets.
8. In the city neighborhoods, day or night, double and triple parking may occur.
9. In the city neighborhoods, pedestrians may start a conversation with
the driver of the vehicle in front of you, thereby blocking the entire street.
10. During winter snow storms, residents dig out
a parking space, place a chair in that space, and then reserve that space
until 99% of the snow has melted.
11. During winter, the potholes can be so deep they can consume one corner of
your vehicle, and usually throw out your alignment.
On The Highway
1. Driving in the breakdown lane or shoulder is illegal unless
marked in very few places, but occurs every day during rush hour.
2. Lane Jumping, or weaving in and out of traffic and getting nowhere faster
than anyone else, is extremely common during rush hour.
3. Clover Leaf Jumpers, or drivers that merge in front of you, and then jump three
lanes to the left while cutting off everyone else traveling at 65 mph, are
extremely common to find during rush hour.
4. In the slowest vehicle lane, you may actually witness vehicles yielding to the left to get out of the way of speeders behind them. I
infer that some drivers think they will not get caught if they speed in the
right lanes, which causes this behavior.
5. Lane drawlers may occupy the center lanes on the
highway. You may observe the center lanes traveling at a slower rate of
speed than the far left or right lanes. I infer that fear of clover leaf
jumpers causes this behavior.
6. Mystery signs, such as lane closure ahead, are often left on the highway
even though the work crew went home hours earlier.
7. After witnessing an erratic driver, you may think to yourself, "that
person just risked the lives of several people including them self in exchange for gaining one
half of one second."
Accidents
1. Keep a disposable camera in your vehicle. The auto insurance and tort
system in Massachusetts can be considered somewhat tainted, so if an
accident does happen, photographs are useful for determining fault.
2. Interview any witnesses of an accident if available. The person
that struck your vehicle may be great friends with the investigating police
officer. The other driver may also procure witnesses that you were
unaware of.
3. The person that struck your vehicle may admit fault at the scene of an
accident, but may likely file an accident report containing a completely
different account.
4. The insurance claims handler of the driver that struck your vehicle may
not believe in the physical laws of inertia or gravity when reviewing your
vehicle's damage, for determining fault.
5. The repair shop you take your vehicle to may discover $1,000 damage you
didn't even expect you'd have, which will then be reimbursed most likely by an insurance
company if you were not at fault for the accident.
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