Yeah, I can believe that L.A. has a high accident rate. But I’d argue that it’s probably NOT because drivers in L.A. are particularly bad, but because driving conditions here are so challenging. The roads here on a typical Saturday afternoon are as treacherous as most cities are at rush hour. In general I’ve found the drivers here are the best of any place I’ve lived.
Yeah going to the airport is straightened out. Leaving however it’s still a stupid intersection with the highway seemingly heading down a small one way street till you look at the parking lot to the left and realize that’s the line for the toll!
This is much more true:
then this:
This is the best post.
I lived in Boston for three years and refused to drive. Every time I stepped off the curb as a pedestrian, I felt like I was risking my life (and judging from the times I saw a car driving on the sidewalk, I was probably risking my life just for walking within feet of the road). I have traveled all over the US and Europe, and I have never seen so many lunatic drivers than in Boston.
And this! I had a friend who liked to say that in Boston a turn-signal isn’t a request, it’s a statement of intent. They will be turning left, whether there are cars in their way or not.
Re: Boston Drivers Sucking
As a long time Boston driver who spent time living in one of the cities actually on the list–San Francisco–I tend to put it like this:
If someone cuts you off in Boston (a pretty routine occurrence, to be sure!) they know damn well that you’re there, and do not care. They have calculated that they will be able to get out in front of you with no damage and probably without even any required action on your part (though it may well be closer than you are comfortable with, especially coming from elsewhere). I had a guy in Gloucester a couple days ago who was turning left onto the road I was driving on and he put his tongue out and gave me the devil-horn gesture as his car whizzed by my front bumper! He was well aware of what he was doing and correctly estimated that I would not plow into the driver side door or clip his rear bumper or anything like.
But here’s the thing… if someone cuts you off in San Francisco (also a routine occurrence), in my experience they had no friggin’ clue your car was even there! Sure, there was no intent, but that’s because there was no awareness!
As a generally skilled driver who is aware of his surroundings while operating a motor vehicle*, I greatly prefer the former situation. Having more aggressive drivers–and I would concede that Boston should come in near the top of that kind of list!–does not mean having the worst drivers, and those crash statistics seem to bear that out. Though I can totally understand why it may look that way to someone coming in from the sticks.
Also, there seem to be a lot of posts along the lines of “Boston drivers are the worst. Their roads are so confusing!” Which doesn’t seem to make sense. To me, that–in conjunction with the over the top aggressiveness–would tend to produce drivers that are (generally) more adept at dealing with confusing, difficult, unexpected driving situations, no?
*Yeah, I know… everybody thinks they’re a great driver.
This. A group of friends and I decided to head up to Boston and volunteer at the Democratic National Convention back in 2004. We all piled into a van, and planned to drive from Nashua, NH to a friend’s apartment in Boston where we could crash. We figured it would take a little over an hour door-to-door.
Four hours later, we had to pull over and stop for twenty minutes so that our driver could cry. No one blamed him - between the traffic, insane drivers, and utterly demented road layout, none of us was doing much better.
If anyone does intend to drive in the Boston area, they should be well aware of the biggest (literally!) offenders: MBTA buses. That bus in front of you may well still have the door open and a passenger only half aboard, but if that left blinker just went on, they ARE moving into the driving lane. As in, they are in the process of moving into the driving lane, as opposed to moving into the driving lane in the near future. And it is highly recommended that you not be attempting to go around them at that time.
Like quite a few others, apparently, I came to this thread to see if Boston was at the #1 position (or “pole position” as they’d call it at a Boston stoplight). Having done some international traveling, though, I’d say driving in Boston was a dream compared to Tokyo, Taipei, or Athens.
My main issue in Boston is that all signs and lane markers are considered mere suggestions. Entrances to tunnels are free-for-alls. Pedestrians and cyclists are one step above speed bumps. Two Boston driving stories:
The first time I visited Boston, I was making a left turn. I pulled into the turn lane, and stopped because a pedestrian was crossing the road. They guy behind me laid on his horn and started screaming at me. I leaned out the window and yelled to him, “There’s a pedestrian!” He yelled back, “Run the fucker over!”
On another trip, I was on a side street when a fire truck came up from behind with lights and siren going. I pulled over and he whizzed by. I pulled back out into the road and continued behind him. A couple of blocks later, the lights and siren went off, and he pulled into the firehouse. I was miffed. This guy was using his lights and siren just to go back to the station? Then the driver got out carrying pizza boxes. sigh
“…but I get scared driving in Montreal…” (Antonio 107). I’m born and raised in Canada and have lived in Ottawa, Victoria, Halifax, and Montreal and have driven in a variety of other Cdn cities. In my experience Montreal gets an unfair, bad rap. Their drivers are fast, decisive and they don’t screw around (from a driving perspective). I lived their for four years and it’s my favourite Canadian city to drive in. Based on my experience, from best to worst for driving: Montreal, Ottawa & Toronto, Victoria, then Halifax. Halifax is extremely frustrating because of courtesy exercised to a very dangerous level; inability to signal; sporadic speed changes while rarely approaching the speed limit; drifting aimlessly from lane to lane; and slowing down for no reason among others. And now the city of Halifax has mandated a rule stating that motor vehicle drivers must give cyclists a full metre when passing. I’m an experienced vehicular cyclist and I see this as a potentially dangerous law which will ultimately cause a collision.
All of them.
IME, Boston wins in a walk, so to speak. Just awful.
Joe
I’d put that somewhat in reverse. If they can chose an action that negatively impacts someone else, they will do it regardless of whether it benefits them. I tend to think that a lot of them spend more time fighting over inches than worrying about how to make the entire trip more effectively.
I would say the city with the worst driver in the world is the one who is driving in front of me at any given moment!
Get outta my way you idiot, that’s my sidewalk!
DC is getting a bum rap. Driving in the city is fine. The drivers are agressive but they pay attention. It doesn’t get horrible and infuriating until you get out in the suburbs and people just sit there after the light turns green.
Agreed. By comparison, I’ve done some driving (not very much) on the highways in/east of the Bay Area, and holy fuck did those drivers make me nuts. There was no consistent stratification of speeds, and a couple times the average speed in light to moderate traffic was 5+ mph below the speed limit, so trying to travel at/slightly above the speed limit was like playing a demented spinoff of Frogger. It’s all about what you’re used to and what you expect, I guess, and most of the miles I’ve driven have been in the greater D.C. area, with our angry commuters and clueless tourists. Hint: it seems that having diplomat license plates is no guarantee you’ve ever driven a car before, and the cops can and do drive like even bigger assholes than everyone else. Compared to in/around the Beltway, I’ve actually been more frustrated with the D.C. tourists/commuters driving in the exurbs, though - driving 20 mph above the speed limit while passing bikers over the double yellow on blind curves and driving half the speed limit and slowing down to gawk at cows are not acceptable strategies, people. Og help you on the Beltway if you’re trying to merge in a car that can’t get out of its own way, though. Some of those entrance/merge lanes are brutally short, and nobody’s going to cut you any slack.