Home!
May 1, 2008 - 8:43 am PDT
I am SO glad to be home! It was SO nice to sleep in my own bed. I am SO glad to not be driving. I drove 26 hours in the last two days and I’ve had enough.
I’ve learned many things about drivers in the past week and a half as we drove to and from Louisiana. One of those things is that people are stupid. Also, southern cops put so many more people on the interstate than northern states do, and the people of those states know it (meaning they drive slower). A lot of people in the south don’t understand that the right lane is the driving lane and the left lane is the passing lane. An incredibly large amount of people don’t use their blinkers when changing lanes. Some drivers think that because I’m giving the car in front of me several cars length of space that I’m going slower than them, and that they need to swerve around me to get between us. Oh yeah, and a word of advice: If you’re stopping behind another car on a hill, break your normal habit of stopping 2 inches from their rear for just that once. They may be driving a standard and will drift back a bit. If they hit your car, it’s your fault.
Oh, and word of advice number two: If you see a police car on the interstate and feel the need to slow down, don’t go 10mph below the speed limit.
Categorized: General
Natalie
May 1st, 2008 @ 9:29 am PDTYah people in this state pass just as much on the right as they do on the left. What is bad is when people start passing in the emergency lanes when traffic is bad. They have really tried to crack down on that by sending out cops on motorcycles.
I find the speeds here are much higher than in nh. Inner city streets and even downtown roads are usually 35mpg and other streets as much as 40-50 within the city, but its impossible to go that high if you wanted to on some of them. Also interstates going through the city maintain speeds of 65 (everyone goes 10-15 over anyway). Once you are out in the country the interstates go up to 70.
My worse pet peeve though is school buses. They cap their speed at 45mph on any road. So getting stuck behind one on the interstate is horrendous! Everyone else is going 70 and you get stuck at 45 its impossible to get out from behind them. I despise the cap on the buses, if they are so concerned about safety than put seat belts in but frankly they are a road hazard.
I was complaining to my friend the other day that I wish we had minimum speeds on the interstates. The buses almost and sometimes do violate what would not be allowed on northern interstates.
Its also annoying when people don’t know how to handle traffic circles. They are putting them in all over the place now to improve some busy roads around campus. At first it was almost a disaster and it took forever for people to figure them out. Now its finally starting to help the congestion. They are planning on converting every intersection on one of the busy streets to this style we’ll see how that goes..
For the most part I find people are ok with keeping away from me on steep hills but I still am cautious and sort of ride the clutch to keep from falling back…though if its a long light you can’t help but go to the break. Actually on really steep hills I even find automatics will drift back a little.
Kri
May 1st, 2008 @ 12:14 pm PDTYeah the traffic circles are becoming big here too, and I hate it.
Cade
May 1st, 2008 @ 2:31 pm PDTnow you know what my daily driving is like….unless you think I’m a bad driver? Do you think I’m a bad driver? now I am all nervous. Can you tell me how to put twitter on my food blog?
Kri
May 1st, 2008 @ 3:21 pm PDTHaha, who knows Cade I wasn’t paying attention to your driving. Hmmm I’m not familiar with Twitter but I’m sure I could figure it out.
Nathan
May 1st, 2008 @ 4:48 pm PDTI get aggravated every time I see someone cruising down the road in the left lane. To be honest, though, it happened as frequently when I was in Massachusetts as it does down here.
Glad you guys made it back safe and sound. We had such a great time with you. Let’s make it less than two years next time.
Kri
May 1st, 2008 @ 5:57 pm PDTThanks Nathan, we had a great time too
Corey caught the baby bug while we were down 
Beth
May 1st, 2008 @ 6:04 pm PDTBaby bug! Ha, it sure is baby season. My co-worker just left on maternity leave - knitted up some cute booties for the couple
As for driving. Bah. Well, I live in Mass, my commute goes in and out of Boston on 93… in the six months I’ve been here, I have seen the craziest stuff. I miss NH
On the plus side, it has made me a better driver by learning to be a little more self-confident and watch my mirrors religiously.
As for weird speed limits, in Texas - not sure where else, but the speed limit changes for day and night. One sign is white, the other black. Kinda neat.
Beth
May 1st, 2008 @ 6:07 pm PDTI guess my comment was moderated and it gave me this cute message when I tried to post again:
“Duplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that!”
Now that’s new. I like!
Kri
May 1st, 2008 @ 8:31 pm PDTThe day and night speed limits are wierd. I definitely am a better highway driver, and know what to expect now for sure.