[lit-ideas] Re: Straight ahead is the front zone...
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 04 Jul 2004 10:41:47 -0700
on 7/4/04 6:32 AM, Erin Holder at erin.holder@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> I remember my final driving test. We have to pass three here in order to
> get our full license. I failed miserably. Well, I was failed on a judgment
> call. I was making a left turn, and speeding towards the intersection was
> this heinous, yellow SUV.
Yesterday's behind-the-wheel lesson, Emily says, included the following
advice: if you come to a junction with a one way street, but feel that it is
unsafe to make a turn while the light is red, as allowed by law, you must
say to the examiner, "Oh Mighty One [this was clearly Erin's first error,
failure to acknowledge power] Great Lord of Middle Earth and Sometime
Empress of India, I know that I am permitted to turn, but I don't feel
comfortable [these two words are the only ones from the original quotation;
feeling comfortable is what people on the left coast are supposed to do]
turning in these circumstances," thus indicating that you know and
understand the law but want to remain safe and alive.
When Emily told me this, I remembered how I learned to nod at mirrors so
that the examiner would have a clue that I was using them. I also recalled
the awkwardness of the then current fashion for turning the wheel, feeding
it from hand to hand without ever losing contact with either hand. There
was indeed in 1973 in Barry, Wales--what a place for a driving test; hills
like San Francisco and a clapped out clutch to attack them with--some early
signs of the current silliness. But to judge by the evidence, that sillness
has grown like a well-manured weed.
In fairness I should add that yesterday I learned the error of my ways. In
the U.K. when two vehicles are to go round one another at a junction, they
are supposed to pass behind one other, whereas in the U.S. they are supposed
to pass in front of one another. This difference I knew. But--here was the
news-- in the U.K. you failed the driving test [drivers' test] if you did
not enter the juction while the light was green and wait in the right place,
just past half way across. The U.S. system is that you must not enter the
junction until your exit target zone process, or whatever the jargon for
"road" might be, is clear. In other words *all* junctions in the U.S. are
to be regarded as cross-hatched junctions in the U.K. are. To any of you I
may have sworn at for failing to enter the junction, and thus to get traffic
moving, I humbly apologize. I'm a stranger in these parts.
David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
