begin quoting Andrew Lentvorski as of Thu, Feb 22, 2007 at 06:22:23PM -0800: > Alan wrote: > > >I'm not sure I agree. > > > >I can assure you that Back East, where the traffic density is much > >higher(1), people tailgate much the same as they do in California. > > I don't agree. Having lived in Boston, Pittsburgh, and Washington, DC, > I never found tailgating to be anywhere near the problem as it is out here.
I've never driven in Boston or Pittsburgh, but Washington DC and environs convinced me that the drivers in that area are insane. > I tend to attribute it to a higher incidence of auto-Darwination. > Idiots who tailgate wind up punished by the weather in those cities. I've joked about turn signals being a sign of weakness in other parts of the country, but it's true in DC. I'll take California-style tailgating any day of the week over that. If you get out of their way, they'll pass you. > It probably also has to do with commute distance. An hour commute is > the absolute upper limit in Boston because any amount of weather can > turn that into 2-3 hours fairly quickly. I've noticed that people don't slow down when it rains, but when I lived in .mi.us, I noticed that people didn't slow down when it snowed. All the cars would rust out in a few years anyway, so a couple of dings here and there weren't a problem. What's odd about 'round here, however, is the number of vehicles I see with obvious _pole_ impact damage. I wonder, this this due to our tendency to protect things with nice steel poles, or because bumpers have gotten softer (my last car had a bumper that seemed to be nearly all vinyl and styrofoam)? -- Maybe it's because people are driving SUVs and can't see anything. Stewart Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
