Driving

I love the act of changing gears, which isn't Freudian at all. Whenever I drive I always aim for the smoothest transition possible. I detest jerky drivers - those that accelerate away at the lights for no discernable reason and then decelerate for a corner at the last possible moment. I like my stomach to stay in the one place.

When I drive I like to imagine my car is a glider, so I usually put on gliding music - Stereolab seems to work best.

I've got a Toyota Rav4, which gets better gas mileage than most cars, thank you very much. It's a manual and it's got the requisite CD player, which is going to make holiday travel much more bearable this year. I obey most traffic laws, although people in Boston seem to think of them as traffic guidelines.

I just had my first driving lesson! After avoiding it for many years I have bitten the bullet, mainly because I get a free car with my job!

I kept going into a blind panic every time I was in control of the vehicle, mainly because I am not sure how to stop! I am however excellent at speeding up!

Any advice on building up my road confidence?

I hate driving and wish I lived in a state that had good public transpo. Pedestrians here are so dumb that they almost get themselves mowed down daily doing illegal shit - if they lived in New York, they'd be roadkill.

Recent example: three-way stoplight near my house, where you can only go left or right. Because of this, when it's time for the pedestrians parallel to you to cross, all three directions get red lights and the Walk sign comes on....because essentially, everybody the green light is a green arrow for anybody in the left lane.

so the other day, this lady and her kids begin slowly walking across the street despite the red hand being raised. there's a big van in front of me moving slowly and I can't see why, as they are blocking the pedestrians. As I finally go through the intersection, I accelerated and almost hit the pedestrians as I couldn't see them as the van had blocked them from view and the lady begins gesticulating to me angrily.

and last year some idiot and his two kids almost got mowed down on one of the busiest streets in O-Town as he started crossing with a prominent Don't Walk sign, then had the balls to put out his hand to stop traffic while one driver angrily honked at him, crossed the street at a glacial pace, and gave a smug "thumbs up" sign to the driver when he finished crossing.

speaking of making driving harder, ULEZ has worked:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/08/sadiq-khan-hails-remarkable-progress-in-improving-london-air-quality

what do you think it would take for a ban on private cars to become feasible in central London, or are you already there?

I remember the transit system being pretty dead after hours, with zone-based pricing like we have on our commuter railroads. flat fare across the London metro system would be a step in the right direction imo

Pedestrians here are so dumb that they almost get themselves mowed down daily doing illegal shit - if they lived in New York, they'd be roadkill.

eh, nobody in nyc waits for the light to cross a street if there are no cars coming or if they deem oncoming cars are sufficiently far away. there's always an expectation that the driver will stop for you if you made the wrong call, and there's always some visual obstruction. drivers here anticipate this behavior and heed to pedestrians.

anywhere else, you learn pretty quickly not to do shit like that if you want to live.