Motorway Madness

Maybe it’s just that I come from an atypical town, but learning to drive in Bloomington has been a rather disheartening experience, to say the least.

It’s not so much the condition of the roads as it is the attitudes of my fellow drivers.

For example, where I come from, it’s customary to cut other motorists a break when they’re trying to make a left turn, particularly onto a busy street. You slow down if you’re already in motion, and if you’re stopped at a light, you flash your lights or wave the other driver on. They thank you with a wave, a flick of their lights or a honk.

That doesn’t happen in Bloomington. People don’t cut you breaks, and I’ve found that when I try to signal to someone that I’m stopping for them can make that difficult turn, they don’t know what I’m doing. They stare at me in utter confusion.

“Probably another drunk college kid,” they might think as they eventually pull out onto the road without a gesture of thanks.

As an aside, I realize this is a college town, but I’ve never seen so many drunk drivers. It’s surely no coincidence that “Hoosier” rhymes with “Boozer.”

But perhaps I’m being unfair. It might be that the majority of motorists let loose on the streets of Bloomington simply don’t know how to drive. IU could probably cut tuition rates in half if police ticketed everyone who rolls through a stop sign on Kirkwood or speeds up so they get to the intersection before the pedestrians can enter the crosswalk.

Back to spontaneous acts of goodwill on the road: there’s also the little matter of blocking intersections. There are some states in which this is actually against the law, and I dearly wish that Indiana would follow suit. It costs you nothing to stop twenty extra feet from the guy in front of you if doing so will free up an intersection, and you’re at a traffic light anyway.

Well, that’s not true, exactly. It’ll cost you one car length, should someone pull out onto the road in front of you. I know, as I’m constantly tailgated, that people like to get to their destinations as quickly as possible. Is it really that much of a sacrifice to let one more car in front of you?

A related gripe is that very few people seem to be familiar with the turn signal feature of their vehicle, an observation that simply confounds me. Using your turn signal is not just a courtesy to other drivers; it protects you, as well.

Unless you’re in some weird situation in which you actually want to get into an accident (for insurance purposes?), you should probably use your turn signal, especially since the guy behind you might not realize that you’re about to come to a near-full stop until it’s too late.

In my three weeks here, I’ve found that it’s actually less stressful to ride the bus at a peak time than it is to drive to the mall at 10 a.m. on a weekday. Just saying.

­— atsou@umail.iu.edu