Driving in the City

[meredithp]

I learned something last night: I cannot drive in New York City. Specificially, I cannot park a car in Manhattan. We had parked for the week on a street with a school, so the signs said "No Parking 8am-6pm School Days." The kids have been on vacation all week, but this morning they returned to school so we had to repark the car last night. I agreed to do it, and I set off in the dark and rain to attempt to park the car. To summarize: it didn't work. I was scared of the cabs that kept getting beside and in front of me, I couldn't keep track of one-way streets, people kept wanting to walk in front of me, I couldn't figure out where to find actual valid parking, and - worst of all - I couldn't defog the windshield except for a tiny halo around the bottom. If I hadn't been so frazzled by the rest of it, I would probably have figured out that the air system was actually pointing at my feet and not at the windshield at all. But everything all put together left me rather freaked out, and I had to park in front of a fire hydrant in front of :C:'s building and run upstairs to say "I can't do this! Come help me!" (I'd left my cell phone with my purse, which I hadn't brought with me.) I think that if it had been daytime I might have been okay, and if it hadn't been raining I probably would have been fine. But that combined with the usual hazards of city driving just pushed me over the edge, so I'm not keen to try it again anytime soon. The only thing I do trust myself to do is retrieve the car and park it in front of the building for loading purposes...anything else would scare me.

Comments

[sunnydale47.livejournal.com]

It's simple to park in NYC. You gradually inch the car out until someone in the stream of oncoming cars can't get past, and then you simply block the way until you're finished, ignoring the honking and any gestures or curses that may accompany it. In NYC, the rule is the one who gets the right-of-way is the one who takes it.

Now do you see why I drove the way I did? It's been the work of a lifetime to purge the aggressiveness out of my driving!

We went to New York once with Daddy, when you were about 3 -- I forget why, whether we were just sightseeing or had a purpose. Although I had managed to calm my driving considerably by then, I was pleased to see that I could call upon my old skills when I needed them and still ace out cabs. You have to be good to ace out NYC cabbies.

My current project, sparked by the gas price crisis, is to drive closer to the speed limit. Even though gas is down again to less extortionist levels, I'm still trying to drive more slowly. I actually have no problem driving at or near the speed limit if I'm alone on the road, but because of the way I learned to drive, I feel competitive when anyone passes me and always want to be in the fastest lane. Having a car that doesn't like to go much over 70 has helped, but now I'm making an effort to stay at around 60 where the speed limit is 55, and close to the limit where it's 65. It's still an effort to let most of the other cars zoom by, but I'm working on it.

However, I think I'll always be able to handle NYC traffic. I don't like driving there, but I've driven in midtown and downtown Manhattan at rush hour in a stick-shift car while having conversations on 2 meters with a hand mike! I don't know that I could do all that any more -- but with an automatic transmission, two hands on the wheel and my full attention on the traffic, I'm sure I'd do fine.

[sunnydale47.livejournal.com]

Your SO is the kind of driver I don't like sharing the road with! And since I live in central Maryland also, I probably do share the road with him occasionally. Maybe he's that jerk that cut me off the other day, or the one who abruptly sped up when I put my turn signal on yesterday.

He reminds me of my friend's son, who recently commented that he never stays any further than half a carlength from the car he's behind, so that nobody can get in front of him. Sooner or later he's going to ram his car into the car he's tailgating, and no matter what the circumstances, it will be his fault. I stay several carlengths back for safety, although it took me quite awhile to learn to accept the fact that this means I'm letting a lot of cars get in front of me.

As you probably surmised, I grew up in NYC and learned to drive there. I moved to the DC area in 1976, and I've been trying to unlearn those habits ever since. A lot of them are ingrained, and I still have friends who get a little nervous when they drive with me (not realizing that I learned to drive under conditions that make the roads in this area a piece of cake for me). But I'm still working on it.

Unlike garnet_rattler, I hate to drive in Manhattan in the rush hour. I can do it -- and do it well -- but that doesn't mean I like it. For the sake of his own blood pressure and safety as well as that of the rest of us he shares the road with, he ought to calm down.

[sunnydale47.livejournal.com]

Actually he doesn't drive currently because he doesn't have a car.

Whew! That's a relief!

No, seriously ... I'm glad he doesn't tailgate. As for the lane-changing, it sounds like he means well -- I don't like when people hang out in the left lane (or middle lane) if there's little or no traffic in the lane(s) to the right, and I don't do it myself. BUT ... in this area that condition is rarely the case except late at night (and not even then on I-95!), and it's not good to keep zipping back and forth, either.

But I end up doing that sometimes too, in an effort to keep from impeding faster vehicles while not being impeded myself by slower cars. Generally I stay in the left-most lane that is moving at the speed I want to move. If I'm in the left lane and traffic generally (not just a few cars) is moving faster in the lane to my right, I'll move over. But then if I come up behind a car that's going too slowly, I'll go around it.

That's why it's safer to have realistic speed limits rather than limits that are artificially low, like 55 mph. If everyone is traveling at somewhere near the same speed it's much safer than if some vehicles are doing 55 and others are doing 85 (can you say "I-95"?!).

Since my recent decision to slow down, though, I'm doing much, much less lane-changing, and finding driving on limited-access highways much less stressful. I just set the cruise control somewhere between the limit and 5 miles above, and sit in the far right lane. I'll move to the next lane if someone is going below the limit or trying to merge from an on-ramp, and cruise there until the right lane is empty and move back again and stay there. It's so much more relaxing, and my car is now averaging about 28-30 mpg instead of 23-25 the way it had been. That's about a 20% increase, which reinforces my choice to drive more slowly. (From the Truth-in-advertising Department: When I'm running late I go faster, but I try to leave early enough to not have to do that. )

Frighteningly enough

[sleepingwolf.livejournal.com]

In Pennsylvania, that sort of lane changing is legally mandated; you're not legally allowed to be in the left lanes for more than 2 miles at a time.

[firesign3000.livejournal.com]

dont feel bad, nobody can drive in nyc, especially manhattan. i have an advantage though, sonce my grandfather on my dads side was a cab driver. :)

[oh-chris.livejournal.com]

i pretty much refuse to drive in manhattan. and i grew up in the city, on two very busy streets in queens!

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'd even try, it sounds a nightmare even without the weather, glad you were able to get C to help out!

[eudyptes.livejournal.com]

I wish I had known then what I know now. I've taught so many people to parallel park now, I wish I could zip back in time and teach ME how to teach YOU the right way.

It usually takes about 45 minutes of instruction & practice. After that, most people can whip a car into a "standard" (MD standard, anyway) space in 30-45 seconds with no "back and forth-ing". I had lot's of students that could do it in 20-ish seconds.

(And for the record, girls are MUCH better drivers on average than boys. No testosterone poisoning.)

Sorry I didn't know what the hell I was doing back then! Hey! At least you're still alive!

Oh, and make sure that your car air isn't set to "recirc" when the defrost/defog is turned on. And turn on the A/C -- even if the heat is on. It's OK, they're two separate systems, it won't hurt anything. And it WILL clear the fog off the inside of the windshield in a snap.

[eudyptes.livejournal.com]

Oooops! That should be "lots" not "lot's".

I didn't teach 'em in batches! %-P

[soquili-gitli.livejournal.com]

A note.

Never try to drive in San Francisco. You will find similar situations, with much ruder people.

[daddysgirl.livejournal.com]

I can so relate! I really dislike driving in busy places and areas with one-way streets make me very nervous. Also, this country has about 60 billion bikes and every time I get on the road, they all decide to ride in front of me...it's one big conspiracy I tell you.

[sleepingwolf.livejournal.com]

When discussing the driving styles in various states, I say "In the State of New York, driving is a competition. That's why in New York City you're not allowed to drive until you are 21, as the competition is that stiff."