Redstate

Survey: Northeast has dumbest drivers

Clearly the people who did the research never drove through Macon, Georgia.  At some point several years ago a guy wrote to the Macon Telegraph from Nebraska proclaiming that he had travelled the country in his car and Macon had the worst drivers anywhere.

I concur.

Hey, my satire-detection apparatus is going off -- is Sen Coburn REALLY one of our faves, or are you taking a good-natured jab at our good citizen-doctor senator ?  I'm from God's Country, but I have relatives across the Red River, so I've always kept up with their politics.  He's hard-core and sometimes a nut-job, but he is my own personal favorite.  If for no other reason than he poses a direct threat to all those snooty, elitist, vaunted Senate traditions.  Plus he's a bona fide small-gov't conservative, a rare breed, esp in our august upper house.  However, if he had in Jan voted against putting Specter in the Judiciary chair (I lost some money on a BET to that effect), I would have voted him for Pope.  And I'm not even Catholic.  And I don't think he is either.

Nevertheless, he's so sincere, and seemingly non-self-aware that there's alot of fun to be had there too.

All those farmers, who never use their turn signals out on the gravel roads? 'Cause everyone knows where they're going, anyway?

They've retired to town.

...especially b/c of his small govt creds. However, at least for me, he's also my fave in a sarcastic way ...because, well, he's kinda crazy.

Be afraid of a conservative maverick than John McRosenberg.

I'm the token moderate and I ran a website following the Coburn campaign, starting in the primaries.  I don't share his extreme (and they are extreme) social views especially on homosexuality, but his bona fides on small government conservatism are incredible.  And his belief in the citizen-legislator is so strong that he is willing to buck leadership to get his way.  That could be bad if one disagrees with him but it could be great if one agrees with him.  He's a McCain who will use his true "maverick" style to slow government growth*.  I look forward to seeing him piss off Rs and Ds alike on some spending bills in the future.  I think he's laying low right now learning the procedures and decorum of the Senate.  But he is not the type to go squishy.

*Although the media will probably never annoint his as such since maverick means "agress with MSM" in their world.

....were not commonly introduced as 'maverick' Democrats.  Of course I, as one of the many resident arch-conservatives (gee, think of what chutzpah it would take for a member of RS to call himself 'the token' arch-conservative -- there's enough red-meat conservative testosterone around here to power the USS Ronald Reagan), am considerably more comfortable with Coburn's social views than you are, Adam, but hey, we have a decent-sized tent.  

But ultimately Coburn along with DeMint, a fellow graduate of the 1994 House Revolution freshman class, are capable, given some time, of beginning and sustaining a non-squishy anti-Beltway counter-culture in the Senate GOP caucus.  Small government, and darn the torpedoes!.. Filibuster this!  No negotiating away the Constitutional option!  Dept of Education, goodbye!  HUD, goodbye!  Dept of Commerce, goodbye! Sen Stevens, OUT of the appropriations loop!  Senators crossing the line to oppose Bush nominees?  Say good-bye to not only all your pork, but that corner office too, we have a janitor closet somewhere you can work in! And you will never chair a committee again in my lifetime! <Howard Dean scream here...>

Well, sometimes I just go MAD with the possibilities of a real conservative revolution in the Senate....sorry!

... courteous, tranquil and serene, compared to drivers I've seen in places like Santiago, Chile and Naples, Italy.

I can't remember how many hours it took for circulation to return to my knuckles after riding in a Naples taxi.

Who put that up there on RedHot? You are blamed for many lost hours of productivity. Absolutely freakin' hilarious

http://siteinstitute.org/bin/articles.cgi?ID=publications50505&Category
=publications&Subcategory=0

I put it up for the editors last night and then Dales linked to it on RedHot.  It's quite funny.

20-25 people in 15 person van... dang that's crazy... and there are no lines on the road, no lights at night, and nobody slows down.... oh yeah and the potholes make it fun too.

He (and DeMint) do show why elected conservatives to lower offices (see 1994) can pay off double.

Also, notice that Coburn didn't get a spot on the Budget Committee.  Sadly, that is a sign that the current leadership doesn't want to challenge the pork-politics model created by the Dems.  That was a major part of the 1994 revolution that has been swept under the rug.  I truly hope Coburn and DeMint bring back those efforts, but I'm afraid it will have to wait for a President who is committed to that vision as well.

The most courteous drivers I have ever seen anywhere are in China.  No one blows their horn, shouts out the window, or makes rude hand gestures, even when the traffic is horrible.  It is hard to tell if they are even making faces at you since they generally won't even look at you, even if you commit a foul against them!  

The perfact storm of lost tourists, addled retirees,and Caribbean driving sensibilities.

on that combo.

Visit Washington DC.

We have all of the above, plus diplomatic staff and dependents who know they can't be ticketed, plus large numbers of 18-wheelers on the Beltway, and everyone is in a hurry. Throw in a little rain or snow and your fun-meter will be pegged in the red zone.

People outside SoCal might want to recall how things here generally spread to other parts of the country as they read Violent lefties protest Minuteman Project. The protesters brought full soda cans, soda cans filled with marbles, and latex gloves to their protest.

The L.A. Times has not yet reported on the ideologies of the groups that organized this event, as well as the previous near-riot in Baldwin Park. In that case, a 66-year-old female was hit in the forehead by a full water bottle and spent the night in the ICU under observation.

She was also a former Minuteman volunteer. Ironic that you haven't really heard all that much about violence against MMP volunteers, but you heard much speculation about violence by MMP volunteers, all of which was proved false.

See also Las Vegas illegal immigration conference to be protested.

On a somewhat related note, see Should Bryan Barton sue San Francisco? You might not think that even the S.F. Supes would print a resolution containing something so quite possibly actionable.

Would anyone in the know be willing to put up the traffic numbers for this site for say, daily,monthly,year(soon to be ly).  Its not all that important in any fashion, just an idle curiosity.
-bro

S1: In Santiago, lane dividing lines are completely ignored. If there are three lanes at a stop light, there will be 5 cars across the three lanes in front. They don't wait for the light to turn green, but go when the opposing light turns yellow.

N1. At least in Santiago, they stop for the red lights. In Naples, they don't. If it looks like he can make it, a driver typically will speed through a Naples red light.

S2. Santiago city busses frequently become packed like giant sardine cans, with riders hanging out the door because they can't quite squeeze into the bus. I actually did this myself once (I was a foolish teenager). Then a few weeks later, there was a newspaper story about a college student who died when he got hit by a parked bus. He was hanging out the door of a bus when the driver, who said he didn't know he was there, passed a parked bus with only a few inches to spare. The student and two others were shorn off the bus.

N2. The white knuckle incident I mentioned above: I was in a Naples taxi. We were on a multilane street in downtown, which was divided by a trolley track with concrete barriers in the center, between opposing lanes of traffic. The driver didn't think traffic was going fast enough, so at one intersection, he darted between the barriers onto the trolley track. He drove at high speed on the tracks for several blocks, then at another intersection, he darted back into normal traffic lanes. If a train or trolley had come, there would have been no way to avoid a collision.

N3. I was on a bus in Naples. One part of the route required the bus to make a rather sharp turn. This particular occasion, the bus couldn't make the turn because another driver was filling up at a curbside gas pump. Before the bus driver could back up the five feet he needed to to pass the car, traffic packed in behind the bus with lights flashing and horns blaring. The bus driver and the driver of the car immediately behind got out of their vehicles and proceeded to scream at each other, while the street was completely blocked, until the refueling car finished and went on his way.

N4. I was told that Naples pedestrians were NOT to look both ways while crossing busy streets, because if a driver knew that the pedestrian had seen him, any subsequent accident would be the fault of the pedestrian.

But at least they got rid of the Woodrow Wilson drawbridge on the beltway, didn't they?

I've never driven in DC, but its hard to imagine its worse than Boston.  I hate traffic circles.

I guess not.

I've driven in both. DC is much easier, and it's precisely becuase of the mix. You've got yer laidback Southerners, some Californians, people from Boston and New York, plus the furriners with their diplomatic plates.

This works, because the Southerners and the Californians can see that these other people are crazy, and so give them a wide berth. Thus there are fewer accidents.

I grew up in L.A. Let no one say those people don't know how to drive. If you have never been in a slug of cars going 65-mph bumper to bumper, you don't know what real driving is. One guy from Chicago dropped into that thing would get 300 people killed thatfast. But this goes on every day in L.A.

That's what I was used to when I moved to Boston. Boston is the only city I've ever been in where the cops honk at you to get moving if you're sitting at a red light and there's nobody coming. Traffic circles? The rule is, if you don't look at 'em, they have to get out of your way. So just pull out there; don't look. Callahan tunnel? There are no rules. It's naked aggression, or miss your plane. I've tried rolling down the window and yelling "No insurance!" but even that doesn't work.

By compairson, DC is a piece of cake. Especially if you can play by Boston rules :)

Iv'e only been to Boston once (in 2000), and the traffic didn't seem quite as bad as DC's. I suppose the never-ending Big Dig might have changed that since then. And getting into Logan airport really sucked.

But getting out of Logan (via air) was much worse. That day at Logan was my worst airport experience ever. I bought my tickets three weeks in advance, and by the day of my flight, the schedule had been changed, resulting in a delay that caused my scheduled arrival in Atlanta to be 15 minutes after the departure of the last connection to Columbia. And I only found this out after I had checked my bag. The airline had changed my itinerary so that I would arrive in Atlanta at midnight, depart for Cincinnati at 6am to catch another flight back to Columbia, arriving at 2:30 the next afternoon.

I got them to put me on standby for an earlier flight to Atlanta, and I eventually did make my original connection. Once I knew I would get on the earlier flight, I started asking about my already-checked bag. Everyone I asked, in Boston and Atlanta, told me that my bag was on the same flight, so when I arrived in Columbia, I naturally went to baggage claim. I waited an hour and a half and watched every single bag come off that plane. When my bag didn't show up, I went to the baggage office. That is when I found out that everyone I had asked had lied to me.

The airport agreed to bring my bag 25 miles out to my house when it did arrive, the next afternoon.

Click on the rainbow cube on the righthand side (below the list of editors) to see the sitemeter report.  The link is

http://www.sitemeter.com/default.asp?action=stats&site=s13redstate

I can't really blame scoop for this even in my head anymore.  This is the second time something has been apparent on the frontpage and I've looked right past it.  Much appreciated.
-bro

are very annoying.  I lived in many places throughout the US, but these are some of the worst drivers I've seen yet.  Traffic just sucks, no matter what time of day I travel.

My biggest complaint, everyone goes the same speed, even in the fast lane and the HOV lane.  Same 60 mph, no more no less.  It is almost impossible to get around anyone.

Other than Seattle, Chicago just wears me out!  Too many cars!!!

Can't say much for DC or Boston.  Both great cities, but I've always just used public transportation when I visited those places.  

My husband, who has traveled the world over says Cairo has to be the worst he's ever seen.  Not much scares him, but Cairo taxi drivers sure do!