the good old days

Don’t drive in Boston. Ever.

This is not to say you shouldn’t visit (or even live in) Boston and surrounding areas. I lived in Charlestown for seven years and visit the area every couple of years; this time, it was for my brother-in-law’s graduation in Cambridge. This meant we were with my mother- and father-in-law, which automatically means the batshit insanity level goes through the roof. (I love them, I really do, but vacationing with them is at least five times as stressful as it needs to be.)

Normally, I’d hop onto the T or a bus and go wherever I need to. Not only is the coverage great, but you don’t have to deal with parking or driving. Parking in Boston or Cambridge is batshit insane, especially when you’re trying to park for a graduation in Cambridge and so are 2400 other graduates’ families. Similarly, local drivers are batshit insane, and it gets worse when they are angry about dealing with hundreds of out-of-town drivers who don’t understand Boston Traffic Ettikit.

However, my in-laws badgered us into driving rather than taking the subway. (”You want to take the kids on the subway? OMG!”) So once again, I got to experience streets with no street signs (”This isn’t Prospect Street!” “HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU TELL?”), green left-turn arrows on the right-most stoplight (?!?), taxi-cabs wedging themselves in wherever they want, rehabilitated amphibious assault vehicles (the “duckboat” tours) randomly cutting me off, and (my personal favorite) at least two cars from oncoming traffic will turn left in front of you when the light turns green.

After every illegal, dangerous maneuver you see, you’ll be granted a cheery wave, a silent “thanks, sucker,” that acknowledges your excellent braking reflexes. I learned to drive in Boston traffic, but I’ve gotten soft after living in Indiana and South Carolina — Boston Traffic Ettikit requires ruthless driving or you’ll never get anywhere. Yielding is for babies and clueless tourists. It took a little while to get back into the rhythm.

We did get to have some fun by trying to lose my husband’s parents in the bad traffic, though… their own fault for deciding to follow us

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 7th, 2008 at 8:27 am and is filed under Etiquette, automotive safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.