Throwback Post: "Driving" Me Crazy!

*Throwback Post #10*

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Growing up in small town Iowa, traffic issues were never a huge concern. Traffic jams consisted of four cars coming to the only blinking red light in town at the same time and trying to figure out who got to go first. A slow driving day meant getting stuck behind a line of tractors/combines during harvest season. Needless to say, the small town life is pretty stress free on the roads.

Now turn that situation upside down and backwards and you've got the driving situation down here in Florida down pat. My daily morning commute is filled with lots of braking, lane switching across the expansive 5-lane highways, and aggressive mutterings under one's breath. It's definitely a more agressive style that I'm not 100% comfortable with all the time. But I'm slowly learning to adjust. Here are a few more driving "highlights" from my short time in Palm Beach County:

1. Coming home from work a couple of weeks ago, I was almost to my apartment complex when a green car pulls up next to me. The driver sticks her index finger out of her window and starts wagging it while still looking at the road/cars in front of her. She obviously missed the memo that there is a light on your car that does the exact same thing and actually works better! It's called your turn signal (which a majority of the driver's here don't seem to even know it exists)!

2. Accidents are such a common occurance it's almost scary. It seems like everyday there's been an accident of some sort that Kourtney (co-worker) and I pass either going to or coming home from work. I recently found out that a physical driving test is not always given to people when they go to get their license. Instead, an on-line test is given in place of actually learning how to physically drive! It obviously makes total sense because the computer and highway are the exact same!

I'm becoming a lot more comfortable with this new style. It'll just be interesting when I get back to small town Iowa and have to re-adjust to the laid back style of most Iowan drivers. Guess we'll find out come Christmas time...