Vehicular Variations

Americans love their cars. We love our cars so much that we drive them everywhere. We use them to drive to our neighbor's house for dinner, or to a store that is easily manageable on foot. We use our cars as status symbols of our wealth and prosperity. We all gawk at the gigantic Hummers that take up nearly two parking spaces. And we all cry when gas prices surge two-cents higher. Thanks to President Eisenhower, our country has an extensive Interstate Highway system that makes cross-country travel easier, quicker, and more efficient than had ever been thought possible (which, by the way, was borrowed from the German Autobahn system).

Accompanying our adoration of cars, us Americans hate certain things about other drivers and driving. We all hate those people who are delayed in accelerating after a light turns green. We also detest roundabouts and swear under our breath when trying to navigate them. We also seem to think that we are always doing the "right thing"and everyone else on the road is doing the wrong thing. When we find ourselves in the middle lane of an Interstate, we always think that the people in the right lane are moving too slow and the people in the left lane are moving too fast. As George Carlin so aptly put it, "why is it that anyone driving slower than you is a moron and anyone driving faster than you is an A--hole?"

Given all of this information about American's and their driving habits, let me make this one assumption: Americans would hate driving in Europe (myself included). I find that Europeans are absolutely crazy drivers. In the US, we usually tend to follow speed limits within 5 to 10 mph (or at least we know that we run the risk of a ticket if we go faster than that). In Europe, I'm convinced that speed limit signs are merely "advised speed limits," like the ones we find underneath sharp curve signs, indicating the recommended speed for that curve. Us Americans typically tend to stay in our lane, unless passing another car or avoiding some object in the road. In Europe, lane divider lines seem to provide a suggestion of where a car could travel, at best. And for those of you who adore your gas-guzzling, flame-shooting, space-hogging, think-your-so-cool, hot-rod of a car, you'd really hate it. Cars in Europe are clearly not used as a social status indicator. You rarely find overly sporty cars roaming the streets of Paris, Berlin, or any other European city. Nor do you find shirtless college students out on a sunny day cleaning and waxing their cars like some obsessive-compulsives do in the US. It just doesn't happen.

Additionally, the French love roundabouts. They put them nearly everywhere that us Americans would normally have an intersection with a traffic light. In the US, roundabouts are used, but often loathed by many. We often consider them confusing and unsafe. Little do we know, roundabouts are actually safer than normal intersections, resulting in 40% fewer vehicle collisions, 80% fewer injuries, and 90% fewer fatalities as a result of collisions (see Status Report). This still does not mean that they are not confusing...because they can be in my opinion.

Continuing on this tirade, the streets in Europe tend to go in every-which direction. There is no easy-to-follow system of grid-like streets and avenues, in which case your GPS tells you politely to "turn left" or "turn right." If I used my GPS in France, it would probably tell me things like "veer slightly right" or "turn sharp left." Take a look at the maps below as visual examples:



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ABOVE: New York City with it's grid-like street pattern.


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ABOVE: Paris with it's not-so-grid-like street pattern.


One last thing about the Europeans and their cars. Automatic transmission is a luxury here. Most Europeans drive manual transmission cars. Then there's me--the token American who has only driven a manual transmission car twice in his life...and who would be pretty shaky behind the wheel of one if it ever became necessary.