Narrow Escape

[Brett Dikeman]

At 9:27 AM -0800 3/17/02, Fringe Ryder wrote:

>U.S. roads are a LOT wider, a LOT straighter

You've obviously never been in New England.  The major roads for the 
most part were formed from animal paths, and consequently, NE looks 
like a plate of spaghetti.  Boston is pretty bad...all sorts of roads 
meet at odd angles, positions, etc...roads change names/numbers(Route 
128 is a perfect example) and Boston is full of splits with rather 
unclear markings as to where each fork goes.  The Big Dig makes it 
even worse; exit closings, re-routings, street/bridge closings...

Don't get me started about Massachusetts rotaries...its one of those 
things that by some miracle, works.

Driving back from the NEQ board meeting caravaning with Paul Royal, a 
woman in one of those crappy econoboxes(laganza or something?) about 
the size of a postage stamp decided to squeeze in between my car and 
the truck in front of me at about 80mph.  There was maybe 1 car 
length room to spare, and I let my displeasure be known with 
highbeams and horn as she tried to fit in to avoid slowing down for 
traffic in her lane; I was already braking to increase distance 
between myself and the front car, but there clearly was not enough 
room given the stuff going on a car or two ahead...someone could have 
had to brake and a multicar pileup would have resulted.

When she pulled back over and I resumed passing, she actually turned 
to me, leaned on the horn, and gave me the finger and mouthed some 
very inappropriate words.  When I -finished- passing, she popped back 
into the passing lane behind me, and flashed her highbeams for 10-15 
seconds.  Absolutely amazing.

Brett
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"They that give up essential liberty to obtain temporary
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