Guide to Driving in Middletown

These helpful driving hints were submitted to the Eye by Elizabeth Bobrick

•Do not use your signal when turning. It’s your car, and it’s nobody’s damn business where you’re going.

•If you are behind a car that has stopped to see if an approaching, non-signaling car is going to turn or not, lean on the horn. Honking reminds the driver that “defensive driver” is just another word for “wuss.” If honking doesn’t work, pull up to the rear bumper of the car, gun your engine, and flash your lights.

•When turning (without signaling first; see above), do not attempt to approximate a 90 degree angle turn. Such a turn is inefficient, and gives everyone the impression that you are uptight and possibly OCD. Turn on the diagonal, well into the lane occupied by the vehicle facing you.

•Tailgating is a public service. It keeps the driver ahead of you awake, and expands the vocabulary of any children strapped into the back seat of that driver’s car. The back seat is the one that’s closest to your bumper. I think the gas tank is around there, too.

•Stop signs and yellow lights differ only in shape, color, material, position relative to the street, and whether they hang down (like stalagtites) or stick up (like stalagmites). Otherwise they are the same. Their purpose is to offer you a choice: slow down and stop; slow down, but keep going; or gun it through the intersection if you see a stretch of empty pavement.

•If the light had not yet turned red when you first saw it, no matter how far away you were, but changes to red as you approach it, you may drive through the intersection anyway, unless a police car is also visible. A light only qualifies as a “red” if it was “red” for the entire time that it occupied your field of vision.

•Drive as fast as you need to. It’s later than you think.

•You may wish to reflect for a moment on the signs posted by citizens that say, “Drive Like Your Kids Live Here.” When you see one, slow down a weensy bit, but only involuntarily, because you are talking on the phone and not fully attending to driving. Say to the person on the phone, “I wish people would use correct grammar. It should be, ‘Drive As If Your Children Lived Here.’” You may continue to observe that, correctly stated or not, the imperative is impossible to fulfill. It is a contrary to fact statement. Whether you have children or not, they don’t live here. If you are interested in physics or philosophy, you may further muse that the “here” of the stationary homeowner who put up the plangent sign is “there” to the moving driver. If you drive fast enough, especially if you ignore stop signs and red lights, there is no “here” except inside your vehicle. So the signs should read, “Drive As if Your Children Lived There.” But where? So continue to drive however the hell you want.

•Above all, remember this: Middletown is not a socialist state, where you are responsible for other people’s health and safety. If you MUST encourage your fellow drivers to promote social change, write “war” underneath “STOP” on those red octagonal signs, or “eating meat,” or “Obama.” Civil public discourse should be encouraged everywhere, in any form. This one is particularly effective.

Tomorrow: The High Street 500, aka The Prix de Wesleyan