Learning to Drive

Moving to New York after decades of driving in Boston has meant learning some new rules of the road.

In Boston, it is perfectly OK to linger for 3, 4 or even 5 seconds after the light turns green. People behind assume you're momentarily distracted and will see the light right away. If they have to get your attention, it'll be with a polite, short, quiet little "beep." In New York, it's more like those count down lights at a drag race. You'd better be on the gas, heavy, in the split second the light goes green. Wait a quarter of a second, drivers behind will let you know with a long, loud blast of the horn. Some may also swerve around you, roll down the passenger side window and shout an obscenity, all at the same time.

In Boston, it is rude, really rude, to cut into any line of cars. This includes lines at a traffic light, queued up to get on the highway, queued up to get off the highway, waiting in the left turn lane, waiting in the right turn lane, anywhere. If you try to sneak in, drivers in the line close ranks, bumper to bumper to bumper, and avoid all eye contact. Screaming "My wife is in labor and we have to get to the hospital" will be met with stony indifference. New Yorkers, on the other hand, seem to expect it, maybe even admire it. Squeeze your left front bumper two inches into the line and the drivers seem to understand and think "Well good for you." This can happen, by the way at zero miles per hour or at sixty. It's still OK.

I still have no idea about turning into a crosswalk. My green light says go. Their pedestrian light says walk. Do I wait and risk getting rear-ended? Do I weave between the walkers? I can't figure it out. Maybe that's why "I'm walking here" is a movie line every New Yorker seems to know.