There are plenty of very cool things about living in Boston, like being able to walk pretty much anywhere you want to go, being near the sea, the friendly people, the delicious food... I could go on.
One very uncool thing about living here is the unbelievably bad driving and total disregard for the rules of the road. Oh, and bad road signage that spring exits on the novice driver so that you have about 10 yards to cross 4 lanes of traffic.
Did you know that, in Massachussets, an attempt to make the use of mobile phones whilst driving illegal was blocked on the basis that to do so would infringe the driver's constitutional rights? I'm no Revolutionary historian, but I doubt the Philadelphia Convention agonised over the right of some moron to chat unceasingly into his cellphone whilst merrily mowing down small children on crosswalks.
The state of the roads themselves is pretty dismal, which might explain why the taxi drivers here are so bloody miserable and rude. I've only been here a few months and driven a handful of times, but even I would have a better knowledge of the streets than some of the jokers driving licensed cabs in the City of Boston.
My rant ends with the cyclists. In all fairness, they are a rare breed in Boston, but that is probably because none of them seem to think that red traffic lights apply to them. In the last week alone Zoe's buggy has twice narrowly missed being hit by a freewheeling cycliste running a red light. Today I screamed "JERK!" at the man who almost mowed us down crossing Commonwealth Avenue. I am quite impressed that in the heat of the moment I managed to simultaneously translate the "WANKER!" that was actually going through my mind into understandable American. I hope that ignorant tosspot ("asshole") hits a pothole ("pothole"?) and gets clipped ("winged") by a cabbie ("taxi driver") who didn't see him because he was too distracted talking on his mobile ("cell") 'phone. That would be JUSTICE in any language.
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