Over the weekend, I had the “pleasure” of driving to an unfamiliar location. This is not my first choice of activities, but it served a larger purpose, as driving often does. It being a long drive, I lapsed, as is common, into the mode where I analyze other drivers’ behavior, shortly before concluding that it’s unsatisfactory. I’ve done this before and I’m sure I’ll be doing it again.

I was coming up on another turn, as indicated by Google’s clear instructions, and so was keeping an eye out for the relevant sign. I approached an intersection. It was a green light, and I had the right of way, but it was also a major road with a speed limit of 40. I was doing right about 40—unusual, I know, but I was looking for the turn—and the intersecting road from the right descended down a hill.

In Pennsylvania, right turns on red are legal unless there’s a sign at the light prohibiting it. You’re supposed to stop before making the turn, but like with regular stop signs, few people do. This is especially true when people see a line of traffic coming. Everyone wants to beat it. It came as no surprise, then, that a driver coasted down the hill, glanced in my direction, and swung through his red light into my lane.

My first instinct was freakin’ moron! But I realized as he started to accelerate in front of me that I never needed to hit the brake. In other words, he had correctly judged my speed and distance from the intersection, and was able to pull out in front of me without impeding traffic flow. Strictly speaking, he didn’t cut me off, because at no point did I need to slow down. I only found it unnerving because I was unfamiliar with the roads, and because I was looking at more than just the other traffic.

The guy who coasted through the intersection was obviously familiar enough with it to instantly assess the traffic pattern involved and make the instinctual decision that he would have enough time to make his maneuver. He probably drove through the area every day. I had to conclude that, had I been as familiar with the intersection as he was, I absolutely would have pulled the same stunt. This was immediately followed by the thought that I had, in fact, pulled the same stunt in my hometown numerous times, and if anyone else was unfamiliar with the area in which I routinely drove when I did that to them, they would also be likely to conclude that I was a freakin’ moron.

This set the stage for the following.

I started to think about how some areas are renowned for their crazy drivers, and not only that, but how people from various towns will argue with each other about who has the worst drivers. Now here is where I need to make a distinction between “bad” and “crazy”.

Bad is common. Every place has bad drivers. Lancaster has scads of bad drivers, notably old people and holier-than-thou types who believe that driving less than the speed limit is actually safer than driving exactly the speed limit. Or over, for that matter. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I’ve noticed that people who drive less than the speed limit are the ones most likely to have damaged cars. They’re less sure of themselves.

On the other hand, you can have crazy drivers who aren’t bad. I like to think I occupy this category. I do tend to be an aggressive driver (unless I’m on a motorcycle—that’s a completely different story), and I often make legally dubious maneuvers. However, I also like to think I know what I’m doing. There are plenty of videos on the internet from countries with extremely lax traffic laws, showing huge waves of unorganized traffic meshing with other huge waves of unorganized traffic moving in the opposite direction, and no accidents.

“It’s a universal law of driving that everyone who drives slower than you is a moron, and everyone who drives faster than you is a maniac.”

With this in mind, I’ve deduced a law of perceived driver craziness. On an individual level, depending how crazy you are as a driver will determine how crazy you consider everyone else to be. If you drive under the speed limit all the time, you’re going to think everybody else on the road is all insane NASCAR driver rejects. On the other hand, if you’re a crazier driver, you might find other drivers annoying, but not necessarily nuts. It’s a universal law of driving that everyone who drives slower than you is a moron, and everyone who drives faster than you is a maniac.

I’m talking more about the overall perception of crazy drivers in a given place. So here it is: the Law of Perceived Driver Craziness says that the perceived driver craziness in a given area is directly proportional to the ease of navigating the roads in that area.

I believe this to be the case because the longer that someone has lived in a given area, the more familiar they become with the road system (assuming they drive). But the more familiar they become with the system, the easier and faster it becomes for them to assess a given traffic pattern and react accordingly. To someone who is less experienced, the worse the infrastructure is, the more crazy otherwise regular drivers appear. To the less experienced person, it’s harder to judge the pattern (plus, they may also be searching for signs and markers), so any given reaction to a pattern is more likely to be perceived as nutso, the more complicated the overall pattern is.

With this in mind, I think Lancaster drivers in Lancaster would be considered surprisingly crazy to most other people—but not because Lancasterians are innately crazy drivers. (Many of them are bad drivers, though.) I would say it’s because the highways in and around Lancaster are extremely convoluted and confusing if you don’t know where you’re going. There’s also enough tourist traffic to sufficiently gunk up the works, because they’re all trying to figure out, for instance, how in the world you get to Fruitville Pike when you’re heading west on Rt. 30. (Hint, get off at the 501 exit.)

But Lancaster will never aspire to the extreme driver craziness of, say, Los Angeles. Drivers in LA seem to be nuts, yes, but also, LA is terribly laid out, from an infrastructure perspective. Just driving around for the few hours that I did there, it’s easy to see how it was like ten little towns that grew into one huge city. It’s a very organic city, but that also means it doesn’t have many nicely planned roads, and this is exacerbated by the fact that only like one in three road signs is correct. LA drivers are super-crazy, but mostly because the road infrastructure sucks so much.

As a counter example, Palm Springs is one of the most planned-out cities I’ve ever seen, and the drivers there were fine. But then again, the roads were so spacious, intuitive, and clearly marked that I never experienced the sort of novel, complex traffic patterns that make drivers appear crazy.

Of course, after a lifetime of fighting for your life on the highway, it’s going to be driver culture-shock any time Los Angelites travel elsewhere, not to mention confirmation bias comes into play. So when the folks in PA see a CA plate, it’s automatically assumed to be trouble, because of the perceived craziness of the entire state, thanks to LA.

You could also compare New Jersey and New York City. I personally think New Jersey drivers are worse, but I’ve never driven in NYC. New York is certainly traffic heavy, but from what I understand, it’s fairly well laid out. New Jersey, however, has an utter lack of signage anywhere off the turnpike, which means that no matter what four-lane highway you’re driving on, you’re in the wrong lane. The debate continues on the craziness of New Jersey vs. NYC drivers, but the point is that both infrastructures suck (too much traffic for it to handle in NYC; too few road markers in NJ) and drivers from both areas appear to suck. Coincidence? I think not.

This is all well and fine, but a problem remains. Even if we can predict how crazy drivers will appear to be in a given area, this doesn’t actually solve the problem of there being crazy drivers. And yes, that’s partially my fault, as well.

-Ted