Tuesday, April 30, 2002
Wheeltracks
Mal Friend
It has been a while since I last appeared in print between the covers of Wayfarer. Ed Davis extended an electronic invitation to me to produce something for Wayfarer and I am happy to take up the kind offer.
I left Green Belt five years ago to explore other opportunities. That journey has taken me from Potters Bar and led me to Hatboro, Pennsylvania USA, and happily married to my wife Taney since 98.
I have very fond memories of the thirteen years I was with Green Belt, fun anecdotes about the Easter Tour and many of the other events promoted by GBMC. Like the time I broke my arm putting out Motor Sport is Dangerous signs at the Northaw Autocross.
I moved to the States a couple of years ago and have had great fun learning to drive on the wrong side of the road. Thank goodness for cruise control as a recent drive to the shore took me along a route that was so straight I could have questioned if the Romans actually landed in New Jersey and built roads.
My parents often ask me how I am getting on driving on the wrong side of the road, [right]. To be honest at first it was very strange as my brain kept telling me that this was plainly wrong and driving on the left, towards oncoming trucks, school buses and was best, but not good for a long lasting life. If you have seen the size of some of the articulated lorries (trucks and trailers) you will know what I mean.
Now driving on the right like most things, it has become second nature; I even pull over to the right to give way in car parks (parking lots). Although I still have to be very observant to the road signs, speed limits and signals, especially when I traverse roads that I have not used before. I am quite pleased that my record shows that I have only jumped one red light and headed down a one-way road the wrong way once with one ticket thus far accrued, but that is another embarrassing story for another time.
After being used to sit in traffic jams and flying through London at the average 8mph, it is a welcome surprise that for a country where the car is king, that the roads in these parts are relatively empty of any volume of traffic compared with the UK. Some days can be so quiet, it is like driving on Christmas Day, you know the feeling of light holiday traffic, everyone in a good mood and nobody in any particular hurry.
However I have noticed how the driver behind you in intent on reading your dashboard they drive so close. Any closer and they would be sitting in the passenger seat having a conversation with you. So much for the "2 second rule" of distance when following a vehicle it seems more like a 0.2-second rule and I am sure this trait of tailgating keeps many a body shop in business Taney & I have already seen one 3-car pile-up [fender-bender] caused by driving too closely and having no braking distance. Whilst on my way home from work the other evening I saw a sign on the back of a van, which read in very large, letters “Please tailgate I need a new bumper”. Just about sums up my thoughts on this issue.
This subject neatly leads onto lane control where you have more than one lane in each direction. There simply isn't any. Thank goodness in the UK for the Highway Code. Keep to the inside lane unless you are overtaking. Here the local drivers use the "pick a lane, see a gap in another lane, go for it, don't worry about the signals!" method. I just give a bit of space to the car in front and watch the antics of the cars around me. But a simple rule (not that it's adhered too much in the UK) about lane control, would offer some help here.
After driving in the UK for years it is surprising what roadside furniture you miss after a while. The friendly round 30mph speed limit signs for one, traffic islands for another. You would have thought with the roads as wide as they are would have refuges for pedestrians, perhaps I am just using the wrong roads and they do exist. Pedestrians are King here and drivers should give way to them at all times. As I cast my memory back to last summer when I was the pedestrian trying to cross a 6-lane road. Down by the Philadelphia Flyers Stadium using a crossing similar to a zebra. I made sure there was not a car in sight from either direction before heading across 40 yards or so of painted concrete with no refuge island in the middle, let alone looking left then right for traffic! Can't say it did much for my nerves!
The other piece of road furniture I sorely miss is cats-eyes. Driving at night cats-eyes gave an indication of where the road was. Whereas here I think that the paint they use on the roads here is to some extent reflective and with lines denoting the sides of the road and the lanes it is straightforward to follow, for the extent of the lighting on your car. But does not offer the same sense of direction. It is easy to assume that all roads are straight but when the bends come up, and they do exist, it would be helpful for cats-eyes. So in the meanwhile I’ll just keep eating the carrots to improve the night-vision.
Traffic lights are suspended over the road, above the natural eye-line. After years of Red, Red Amber, Green, Amber, Red. I am getting used to a new sequence and new rules:
Red - This means stop, unless you are turning right when you can turn right on red unless there is a sign to tell you that you can't turn right on a red light. When I cross a junction on a green light it is very disconcerting to have a drive edge out on you from the right.
Red Amber combination doesn't exist! Lights go from Red to Green about 3 seconds or less after they have changed in the other direction. Can't say I am surprised that some drivers race each other off the lights. Green is green the world over.
It has taken me a while to readjust from driving to a 30(ish) limit in built up areas to the more standard 25 here. With the presence of police radar traps here, not that I have fallen foul, it has been easy for me to cruise at 33 in a 25 unwittingly. Although speed limits do vary for no apparent reason along the same stretch of road. A 25 limit may jump to 40 or 35 and then there are the enforced 15 stretches outside schools when the students are arriving or departing usually heralded by lines of yellow school buses.
Between the crossing guards (lollypop ladies and gentlemen) and the volume of school buses, it is difficult to exceed 15mph during the peak arrival and departure periods of the students. However the parental school-run is greatly reduced to that witnessed in the UK. I am sure it makes the commute to the office all that easier with less traffic on the road.
Since I have started driving in 1980 there is one noticeable difference in that I have yet to actually go inside the station to pay for my petrol. Here it is more common to pay at the pump; swiping your card through a debit machine. Very 21st Century compared the petrol stations that I remember in the UK. However to balance this step-forward, for a step back in time, New Jersey have attendants and I cannot remember the last time I had that done in the UK.
Now don't get me wrong, many of the drivers are responsible law abiding, speed keeping individuals. It is just the few who drive in my boot, cut me up and frankly look like they are an accident waiting to happen. Furthermore they are the drivers in this local area. It is different in other parts of the states I am given to understand, worse in some parts, better in others.
So in the last 2 years what I have learned? Well in the immortal words of Michael Caine in the Italian Job, "in this country you drive on the wrong side of the road".
My international license was only good for a limited time and I had to take the Pennsylvania State Driving Test. “They say..” that the best day you drive in the UK is the day you pass your test then all those bad habits start and your driving deteriorates. Humph! Well that day for me was in June 1981 a few cobwebs had been added to my driving skills not least the competition driving techniques I had learned in auto testing (no handbrake turns in the test), and although I had since taken and passed my IAM Advanced Driving Test with the help of the Hertfordshire police force. (No handbrake turns in that either) The thought of taking another test, questioning me on strange signs and driving on the wrong side of the road did not exactly thrill me.
Growing up in the UK we are conditioned into understanding the basic rules of the road. The Penn Dot Manual a state version of the Highway Code covered everything I needed to know to pass the theory test, which I needed to pass just to get a learners permit. Thank goodness my international license was still good and allowed me to continue to drive for a while. In Pennsylvania there are three stages to earning your learners permit, normally without getting behind the steering wheel. First a medical to prove that your fit to drive, then a Penn Dot eye exam. Finally a the theory test on a touch screen computer, 16 multiple-choice questions, with the option to skip the order of questions to correctly answer 14 to earn the permit. With no time limit to the test I sat at the screen and despite my swatting and driving experiences on American roads, fell back on my British driving theory to answer some of the more taxing questions, passing on one nasty little question relating to the number of points added to a juvenile arrested for driving under the influence and without a license. Learners permit earned I returned to the same center the following week to take the practical test.
The examiners all former police officers started the test with a parallel parking test, many who failed this never made it beyond the Penn Dot center car park As I had given up driving in London many years ago and unless you traveled to an American city centers like Philadelphia or New York which I do not, the need to parallel park is a meaningless test. As car parks are in abundance and I have yet to Parallel Park yet. Resisting the opportunity to complete the test Russ Swift style (with the handbrake) I did the standard maneuver although it seemed quite odd reversing to the right than the left after all these years. The rest of the test lasted five minutes and took me through a car park at 15mph. Stopping at several stop signs, a left, right onto the County line before heading back to the start. A far cry from the practical tests in the UK. No reverse around a corner, no 3-point turn, no sitting in traffic. In fact my examiner and I had a not so long and meaningful chat about this on the way round the test and how the American test could be improved upon!
I have very recently created a web page called www.wheeltracks.blogspot.com where this and other motoring items will be posted when time permits. Please feel free to pass on this link as I would be very happy to know that my postings are being read. Comments can be sent to MalcolmFriend1@aol.com
Mal Friend
It has been a while since I last appeared in print between the covers of Wayfarer. Ed Davis extended an electronic invitation to me to produce something for Wayfarer and I am happy to take up the kind offer.
I left Green Belt five years ago to explore other opportunities. That journey has taken me from Potters Bar and led me to Hatboro, Pennsylvania USA, and happily married to my wife Taney since 98.
I have very fond memories of the thirteen years I was with Green Belt, fun anecdotes about the Easter Tour and many of the other events promoted by GBMC. Like the time I broke my arm putting out Motor Sport is Dangerous signs at the Northaw Autocross.
I moved to the States a couple of years ago and have had great fun learning to drive on the wrong side of the road. Thank goodness for cruise control as a recent drive to the shore took me along a route that was so straight I could have questioned if the Romans actually landed in New Jersey and built roads.
My parents often ask me how I am getting on driving on the wrong side of the road, [right]. To be honest at first it was very strange as my brain kept telling me that this was plainly wrong and driving on the left, towards oncoming trucks, school buses and was best, but not good for a long lasting life. If you have seen the size of some of the articulated lorries (trucks and trailers) you will know what I mean.
Now driving on the right like most things, it has become second nature; I even pull over to the right to give way in car parks (parking lots). Although I still have to be very observant to the road signs, speed limits and signals, especially when I traverse roads that I have not used before. I am quite pleased that my record shows that I have only jumped one red light and headed down a one-way road the wrong way once with one ticket thus far accrued, but that is another embarrassing story for another time.
After being used to sit in traffic jams and flying through London at the average 8mph, it is a welcome surprise that for a country where the car is king, that the roads in these parts are relatively empty of any volume of traffic compared with the UK. Some days can be so quiet, it is like driving on Christmas Day, you know the feeling of light holiday traffic, everyone in a good mood and nobody in any particular hurry.
However I have noticed how the driver behind you in intent on reading your dashboard they drive so close. Any closer and they would be sitting in the passenger seat having a conversation with you. So much for the "2 second rule" of distance when following a vehicle it seems more like a 0.2-second rule and I am sure this trait of tailgating keeps many a body shop in business Taney & I have already seen one 3-car pile-up [fender-bender] caused by driving too closely and having no braking distance. Whilst on my way home from work the other evening I saw a sign on the back of a van, which read in very large, letters “Please tailgate I need a new bumper”. Just about sums up my thoughts on this issue.
This subject neatly leads onto lane control where you have more than one lane in each direction. There simply isn't any. Thank goodness in the UK for the Highway Code. Keep to the inside lane unless you are overtaking. Here the local drivers use the "pick a lane, see a gap in another lane, go for it, don't worry about the signals!" method. I just give a bit of space to the car in front and watch the antics of the cars around me. But a simple rule (not that it's adhered too much in the UK) about lane control, would offer some help here.
After driving in the UK for years it is surprising what roadside furniture you miss after a while. The friendly round 30mph speed limit signs for one, traffic islands for another. You would have thought with the roads as wide as they are would have refuges for pedestrians, perhaps I am just using the wrong roads and they do exist. Pedestrians are King here and drivers should give way to them at all times. As I cast my memory back to last summer when I was the pedestrian trying to cross a 6-lane road. Down by the Philadelphia Flyers Stadium using a crossing similar to a zebra. I made sure there was not a car in sight from either direction before heading across 40 yards or so of painted concrete with no refuge island in the middle, let alone looking left then right for traffic! Can't say it did much for my nerves!
The other piece of road furniture I sorely miss is cats-eyes. Driving at night cats-eyes gave an indication of where the road was. Whereas here I think that the paint they use on the roads here is to some extent reflective and with lines denoting the sides of the road and the lanes it is straightforward to follow, for the extent of the lighting on your car. But does not offer the same sense of direction. It is easy to assume that all roads are straight but when the bends come up, and they do exist, it would be helpful for cats-eyes. So in the meanwhile I’ll just keep eating the carrots to improve the night-vision.
Traffic lights are suspended over the road, above the natural eye-line. After years of Red, Red Amber, Green, Amber, Red. I am getting used to a new sequence and new rules:
Red - This means stop, unless you are turning right when you can turn right on red unless there is a sign to tell you that you can't turn right on a red light. When I cross a junction on a green light it is very disconcerting to have a drive edge out on you from the right.
Red Amber combination doesn't exist! Lights go from Red to Green about 3 seconds or less after they have changed in the other direction. Can't say I am surprised that some drivers race each other off the lights. Green is green the world over.
It has taken me a while to readjust from driving to a 30(ish) limit in built up areas to the more standard 25 here. With the presence of police radar traps here, not that I have fallen foul, it has been easy for me to cruise at 33 in a 25 unwittingly. Although speed limits do vary for no apparent reason along the same stretch of road. A 25 limit may jump to 40 or 35 and then there are the enforced 15 stretches outside schools when the students are arriving or departing usually heralded by lines of yellow school buses.
Between the crossing guards (lollypop ladies and gentlemen) and the volume of school buses, it is difficult to exceed 15mph during the peak arrival and departure periods of the students. However the parental school-run is greatly reduced to that witnessed in the UK. I am sure it makes the commute to the office all that easier with less traffic on the road.
Since I have started driving in 1980 there is one noticeable difference in that I have yet to actually go inside the station to pay for my petrol. Here it is more common to pay at the pump; swiping your card through a debit machine. Very 21st Century compared the petrol stations that I remember in the UK. However to balance this step-forward, for a step back in time, New Jersey have attendants and I cannot remember the last time I had that done in the UK.
Now don't get me wrong, many of the drivers are responsible law abiding, speed keeping individuals. It is just the few who drive in my boot, cut me up and frankly look like they are an accident waiting to happen. Furthermore they are the drivers in this local area. It is different in other parts of the states I am given to understand, worse in some parts, better in others.
So in the last 2 years what I have learned? Well in the immortal words of Michael Caine in the Italian Job, "in this country you drive on the wrong side of the road".
My international license was only good for a limited time and I had to take the Pennsylvania State Driving Test. “They say..” that the best day you drive in the UK is the day you pass your test then all those bad habits start and your driving deteriorates. Humph! Well that day for me was in June 1981 a few cobwebs had been added to my driving skills not least the competition driving techniques I had learned in auto testing (no handbrake turns in the test), and although I had since taken and passed my IAM Advanced Driving Test with the help of the Hertfordshire police force. (No handbrake turns in that either) The thought of taking another test, questioning me on strange signs and driving on the wrong side of the road did not exactly thrill me.
Growing up in the UK we are conditioned into understanding the basic rules of the road. The Penn Dot Manual a state version of the Highway Code covered everything I needed to know to pass the theory test, which I needed to pass just to get a learners permit. Thank goodness my international license was still good and allowed me to continue to drive for a while. In Pennsylvania there are three stages to earning your learners permit, normally without getting behind the steering wheel. First a medical to prove that your fit to drive, then a Penn Dot eye exam. Finally a the theory test on a touch screen computer, 16 multiple-choice questions, with the option to skip the order of questions to correctly answer 14 to earn the permit. With no time limit to the test I sat at the screen and despite my swatting and driving experiences on American roads, fell back on my British driving theory to answer some of the more taxing questions, passing on one nasty little question relating to the number of points added to a juvenile arrested for driving under the influence and without a license. Learners permit earned I returned to the same center the following week to take the practical test.
The examiners all former police officers started the test with a parallel parking test, many who failed this never made it beyond the Penn Dot center car park As I had given up driving in London many years ago and unless you traveled to an American city centers like Philadelphia or New York which I do not, the need to parallel park is a meaningless test. As car parks are in abundance and I have yet to Parallel Park yet. Resisting the opportunity to complete the test Russ Swift style (with the handbrake) I did the standard maneuver although it seemed quite odd reversing to the right than the left after all these years. The rest of the test lasted five minutes and took me through a car park at 15mph. Stopping at several stop signs, a left, right onto the County line before heading back to the start. A far cry from the practical tests in the UK. No reverse around a corner, no 3-point turn, no sitting in traffic. In fact my examiner and I had a not so long and meaningful chat about this on the way round the test and how the American test could be improved upon!
I have very recently created a web page called www.wheeltracks.blogspot.com where this and other motoring items will be posted when time permits. Please feel free to pass on this link as I would be very happy to know that my postings are being read. Comments can be sent to MalcolmFriend1@aol.com
Look out for Navigation Blog Point2Point
