NY drivers better than DC drivers

The Atlantic's Megan McArdle has an amusing post on DC driving/drivers vs. NY driving/drivers.

I've never driven in DC - as far as I can remember - but being from Long Island I've driving in NY many times. She points out that as crazy as NY drivers are, there is a method to the madness. She contrasts this with DC which has no discernible rules for crazy driving.

There are strong local norms about things like merging, when to slowdown for a yellow light, and so forth, which newcomers are eventually forced to learn.  "Learning to drive like a New Yorker" is a sort of rite of passage, like knowing where to get good bagels.  People who arrive from elsewhere may lament the aggression of New York drivers, but they also recognize that navigating within the system is a skill that must be acquired, and they're a little proud when they master it.

I discovered once that when I enter Manhattan, I unconsciously adjust and prepare my body. Usually I've just been driving relaxed on the LIE. When you come out of the Midtown Tunnel or off the 59th Street Bridge, you have to have to be alert for the maelstrom. I tend to perk up and my eyes take in a lot more of the street than locally at home.

Before reading Megan's piece I thought that Seville drivers were crazy and unpredictable, but now I realize there is actually a set of norms here.

Basically, two-wheeled  vehicles don't have to obey traffic laws. If there's a red light, they can go right through it as long as there's no cross traffic.

Also, you don't have to wait for your light to turn green to go, you just have to wait for the cross traffic light to turn red. This is wonderful for pedestrians who are crossing late. Because the pedestrian walk signal turns red at the same moment the traffic light turns green.

The other problem is that traffic lights here are not suspended above the intersection like in most places in the US. Instead they are on posts on the right side of the road. In the US drivers may be looking straight upwards at the traffic light, but the direction is straight ahead which means you still have peripheral vision both left and right for pedestrians. Here the drivers (especially the motorbikes) keep their eyes fixed on the light and the very second (even before in most cases) it turns green they SLAM on the gas. If you're a pedestrian (or a cyclist like me) coming from the driver's left they never see you.

Also in Seville, if your car fits, you can park it there. The city could generate so much revenue in parking fines if they would just crack down on that.

Protests and the Power of Propaganda

I saw a nice propagandizing poster while I was out this morning.

It was advertising a protest against Jews...sorry...Irael for the encroachment on Palestinian territory. The poster showed 4 maps each of which had two colors: one representing Palestinian land and the other representing Jewish land.

The first was dated 1946 and basically all of modern Israel was shaded as Palestinian land with a few smatterings of invaders...sorry again...Jewish land.

Next was the UN partition plan which, when compared with the 1946 map is a drastic difference in the proportional allotment of land to Palestinians and Jews.

Next comes 1948-1967 showing a shrinking of Palestinian land without any reference to the 2 defensive wars Israel fought in that time in which they acquired that land.

The final map was Today. This was the best one because nearly all of the West Bank was now shaded with the cloven hoof...dammit!...Jewish color. I suppose this was meant to represent Israeli (Jewish in the minds of the protesters, to be sure) settlements in the West Bank. Although I find it hard to believe that the shadings provided on this map were anything close to accurate. But of course, the final map completely fails to take into account the fact that the Palestinians have repeatedly rejected offers of a two-state solution in which they would have the whole of the West Bank.

I'm so tempted to go to this protest on Saturday with posters of my own declaring that they're peddling propaganda and they know nothing of the history they're so vehemently protesting. I'd like to see how long it takes for someone to make an anti-Semitic remark toward me. As I'm still in the process of sorting my legal status here I think I'll leave it all for now.