STRAIGHTWRY COLUMN July 8 -14

AMERICANS DRIVE FASTER, BETTER

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ON THE ROAD AGAIN....

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Not only are they better at baseball and BSing the Americans are also better drivers than we are. So all right, it’s a subjective judgment So what? All judgments are subjective. They

still serve better than statistics and driving 15,000 kilometers through 16 of the 48 states to the south should qualify anybody to do some judging.

If you don’t believe it, check that finding about American driving to professional truck drivers, who put in much more than 15,000 a month. Professionals, in fact, drive much as ordinary Americans driver -- fast but not furious, aware of everybody around them at all times and courteous.

Here are a few findings from a long business trip:

SPEED LIMITS:

The Americans have chosen their favorite speed for four-lane highways in normal traffic with normal weather conditions. It is a touch over 70 miles per hour (about an even 120 kilometers an hour.) Posted limits vary, state by state, but the speed of traffic doesn’t, as the following list will show.

Usual freeway limits are: Washington, 65; Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, 75; North Dakota and Wisconsin, 65; Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine, 55 to 65. Never mind what the signs say, the cars go 70 and although the radar detector chitters frequently, the highway police never seem to want one of those unpleasant roadside chats. .

NEW BRUNSWICK, PEI AND NOVA SCOTIA LIMITS:

Speeds are far less regular. Posted at 100 in some four lane sections and 110 in others, driving speeds seem to range from 90 to 140 with plenty of lane switching. Police traffic experts say a mix of high and low speeds is a recipe for accidents. For the record, none were seen in four days on the Maritime Highways but cruising them just wasn’t as comfortable as in the U.S. Better than driving in B.C. perhaps, but that isn’t much of a recommendation.

Which brings us to a question larger than speed. What about the quality of driving?

STATE OF THE DRIVING ART:

Americans, like commercial truck drivers, just drive better than we do. Compared to British Columbians, one is tempted to restructure the limerick about the prostitute telling the curate: “The bishop was better, and quicker, and slicker, and more entertaining than you.”

Maybe entertainment doesn’t enter the highway system there but quicker and slicker is what they are.

All traffic, on and off highway, moves faster than here. It’s a largely frictionless flow.

There not only wasn’t a single incident of road rage visible in a solid month of travel, there was evidence of precisely the opposite, courtesy, a quality largely abandoned in British Columbia.

Speed up to get into the right hand lane for a turnoff? The American doesn’t race you for it. He eases off so you can do it. He expects the same behavior from you and, courtesy being catching, as it is, you do it, by golly. You learn very fast to do it.

There is none of the sense of racing to save six seconds getting to a place where there is no prize to be won. As long as you don’t dawdle and get in the way, the other motorists give the impression that they not only know you are there, they actually seem to like you. Odd for highway travel, isn’t it?.

Finally, perhaps most important, how did the Yanks cultivate better driving?

They didn’t do it with heavy handed law enforcement. There apparently isn’t a single photo radar operation in all those many states.

THE LAW AND THE POOFERY

One of the pleasantest aspects of driving south of the border is the almost total absence of dumb signs -- “Speed Kills” (so does too much table salt) and “If You Drive Don’t Drink” (even the drunks who can still read don’t read it. )

The Americans start with the assumption that almost every driver on the road wants to get home rapidly, but in one piece and without leaking blood on the hall entry carpet. He not only does not wish to wreck his car, kill people or go to jail, he actively tries to avoid such things happening. He assumes everybody else feels the same way. It’s called common sense.

With these attitudes the mass of the people are free to travel, courteously, at speeds they collectively decide are sensible.

It leaves the police free to chase the few lane-switching, superfast cowboys who’ve turned on the afterburner and are probably half corned also.

All this explains why I 90 is a better route from Vancouver to Boston than Canada’s Number 1.

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Last in a series of articles from the Atlantic Coast.