Well, it seems traffic is one of my most common themes here. That’s a little because I hate driving, and a little because of how frustrated I get with the other people on the road. I think I have a bit of New Yorker road rage. I am sure most people who have been in the car with me will confirm I am not the most fun person to drive with. It’s nothing excessive, just not fun. Needless to say, my first in depth look at my home is traffic. But before I start, for those of you that missed my previous traffic entries/adventures, you can read up first:
- Traffic IV (a video from Istanbul’s streets)
- Traffic III (a bit humorous)
- Traffic II (a bit humorous)
- Traffic (humorous, but detailed and long)
- Police II (Story of my first traffic fine)
- Police III (Getting my car towed in Istanbul, Turkey)
Caught up? Good. So the first thing I have say. For all my griping about Turkish drivers, I no longer have such a bad opinion of them. When I got back to the states, it became very clear to me how unaware people are on the road (at least in the northeast). People drive slowly in the left lane, they lane change without properly checking their blind spots. You got cut off from time to time. People swerve in and out of traffic to get ahead of everyone. Believe it or not this doesn’t happen as much in Turkey. People do not drive slowly in the left lane and if someone is coming up behind you, everyone moves over. This eliminates the need to swerve like an idiot. In general, Turkish drivers always seemed so much more aware of the road and their surroundings. Friends of mine would argue it’s because mostly men are on the road, which I don’t agree with. I think that becuase things are more aggressive and faster, only the perceptive drivers can really be on the road there, which, and I know this is counter intuitive, makes the roads safer.
Now, Turkey wasn’t all fun and games. People stop at lights and block side roads all the time. Stop signs? I am not sure they even had stop signs. Tailgating, although brief because the tailgated moves the f*(% out of the way immediately, was pretty intense. And people do get shot in traffic arguments there. Nonetheless, I miss the adventure of driving in Istanbul.
Texas is a whole other story. A girl in my office swears that of all the places she has been (she has been a lot of places), southeast Texas has the worst drivers. I couldn’t find any statistics to support this information, but in some ways, she’s not far from the truth. I for one, happen to feel that the roads are arguably more dangerous here than in Istanbul.
For starters, everyone in this state drives insanely fast. On small side roads, it’s not uncommon to see people wizz by at speeds of 60 or 70 mph (95-110 kph) if the straight away is long enough. Even exiting my own development is hazardous at times. The flat terrain and the vast open stretches of road make speeding commonplace. In a congested city like Istanbul, or to use another example of maniac drives, Cairo, you don’t have the possibility to go fast. While Istanbul or Cairo may have many fender benders or small accidents, crashing at high speeds I has a much greater injury rate.
People generally don’t seem to pay attention as well as they do in other places that I have been. I have seen many people slamming on their brakes because they aren’t looking several cars ahead on the road. Traffic will be moving well between population centers, and then quickly slow down. Cars go from 70-80 down to 40 mph when population centers or major on ramps come up. The slow downs seem to come at the same places everyday with variations occurring due to accidents. Yet still people are surprised when suddenly the car in front of them which has been slowing down for a few seconds, is quickly approaching them. They are forced into a quick stop. Several times I have seen people have to swerve into the shoulder to prevent a collision. I have seen that ONCE in New York.
There is also this phenomenon here that everyone travels in the left lane. When I grew up, I was taught the left lane is for passing. In this part of Texas, that is apparently not true. This drove me crazy for the first few weeks I was here, but I think I have made sense of it. Since the highways run right through the cities and are often effective methods for moving around a city (look at hte road layout of Houston, it’s all highways), many people are getting on and off of the highway. The left lane, in a two lane road, then becomes the travel lane, and the right lane is heavily used for exiting and entering the highway. It makes more sense when you see the traffic, and how many cars try merging at once. This is fine, except on the highway, or when the roads are empties. You run into the related behavior of people then staggering themselves along the highway as they travel. Nobody moves over when you pull up behind them, so drivers are forced to weave in and out of traffic to get down the road if they want to be moving faster than the rest of traffic. I have watched people doing this for the weeks that I have been here and I have been amazed at how reckless they are. And this is how I got hit.
Today was my day to drive the carpool. Three of us carpool from the group of apartments I live in to the job site. Because of new parking rules if we want to park in the close parking lot, you need to have a pass. Since Hector is in project controls, it has become a necessity to carpool with Hector. That means getting up earlier, but it’s worth it for the trouble it saves of having to take a bus between parking lots. Today we were just Hector and I. About 2/3 rds of the way to the site, I noticed in my rear view mirror some idiot swerving in and out of traffic in a big pick up truck (another road danger around here is that everyone has big trucks). I distinctly remember seeing him, processing what I was seeing, determining he was an idiot, and deciding to stay in the left lane, going about sixty, waiting for him to pass before attempting to pass the person in front of me. After the second or two it took to process what was going on behind me, I moved my eyes back to the road and…
WHAM!
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VS. |  |
| 09 Nissan Alitma 2.5S: 3100 pounds with 175 horsepower | Big-ass Dodge Pickup: 6700 pounds with 390 horsepower |
Can you guess who fared better in that collision? Fortuneately he had one of the smaller dodge pickups, but my car was still pretty badly damaged. He was going much faster than me and was trying to change lanes without slowing down and before hitting me. I was in the right lane so he moved to the left to try to go into the lane next to me. As he was doing so the front right side of his car hit the back left of my car (he actually came up way short and the indent starts in the middle of my trunk). He smashed in my trunk, smashed my rear light, messed up my bumper (it’s currently tied on with string), and compressed the frame of my car. My head was slammed back into the headrest and I was luckily able to control the swerve of the car as I started to fish tail from the impact.
There were less than 1500 miles on my new car.
Since it was his first accident he didn’t really know what to do nor did I. My passenger however was on top of things. He started writing down information and gave me his phone to call the police. The police cited him for an unsafe lane change, thus putting all blame on him. My neck hurts a bit, but I will wait a day and go tomorrow if I am having a problem. I took pictures whilch I will add once I get my new camera transfer cable, and contacted both insurance companies. I contacted a family member who is a lawyer and I contacted a family member who has a lawyer here in Texas. So everything seems to be on track, and for now it looks like a pretty cut and dry case.
At first it actually wasn’t so bad. Hector couldn’t believe I didn’t yell or anything. Instead I was perfectly calm and hardly said a word. It was actually kind of exciting. In the wee hours of the morning, just as the sun was getting ready to come up over the horizon there had been the sudden and exhilarating event. I had managed to keep control of the car, and pulled over safely, without injury. My first car accident. It was exciting.
Now I am of course pissed off. I now have to deal with insurance companies a rental car, possibly personal injury ect. On top of that I just got over a case of bronchitis (was told by the doctor I may have severe allergy problems like every other northerner here), work is a mess right now because of the crisis, and my hours were just cut. Now, my new car, the first car I have ever owned, the car I test drove three times before I decided it was the right one for me, is all smashed up. Never before in my life have I had so much as a fender bender (that’s more or less true). Now that I have my own car, some guy who’s late to deliver the newspaper slams into me becuase it’s 6am and he’s not quite awake yet. Just my luck.
And just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, I burned my new teapot because I thought there was already water in it. Brand new teapot. Only used it once before. Texas just doesn’t seem to want to cut me a break.
