Brown Sludge

St. Louis Drivers Ed

December 12th, 2006

Really… I have a lot of civic pride - and it’s that same civic pride that’s making me write this. God forgive me for betraying my driving brethren here in St. Louis.

The truth is - that people in St. Louis have to be among the worst drivers in the entire world.

I am definitely including in that group people from third world countries where there are no clear traffic enforcement.

I really mean this.

As someone who has driven all over the United States at all times of the year, I feel qualified to make the claim that St. Louis drivers are the absolute worst of the lot.
There are many things that make this claim true.

At the very TOP of the list is what I call the “Maybe it will get greener” syndrome.
Now… in every other city on the planet - traffic lights are very simple affairs. Red light you stop. Yellow light you use caution. Green light you go.

But in St. Louis - they don’t work that way.

Due to some phenomenon heretofore unknown to mankind - In St. Louis traffic signals apparently have developed a variety of subtle shades of green.

Example.

Sitting at a red light. It’s a tough light. Tough because the person who is in charge of setting the timing on most of the lights in and around St. Louis County and it’s suburbs is an ass-scratching monkey that doesn’t have the brains God gave a freakin’ fire-ant - and - like most lights here - it’s mistimed and out of sync with the general flow of traffic. They all are. It’s as if they give the guys whose job it is to set up the timing of the lights an IQ test - and if they pass - they aren’t hired. Really.

So… this particular light - like most of the other lights - is allowing the lighter traffic from a little used artery a full 12 minutes of green light time, while traffic on the heavier main artery backs up for several hundred kilometers because it’s only green for 1 and 1/2 seconds.

So… we wait.

And we wait.

And we wait.

I’m almost done with the paperback novel I started when the light first turned red - when - miracle of miracles - it turns green!

Time to move.

Only theres a problem.

Like many St. Louis drivers - the guy in front of me apparently isn’t happy with the shade of green that the light has turned.

He studies it for a minute.

He cocks his head.

He turns to the person in the seat beside him. I can see his lips moving, and I can read them.

“‘Zat look green to you?”

“Little bit.” his passenger replies. “Only I wouldn’t say ‘green’ so much as I’d say ‘olive’.”

“Olive. Hmm.” The driver ponders. “I’m not sure I like it.”

“Me niether.” offers the passenger. “Maybe if we wait it’ll turn a more pleasant shade.”

Eventually they decide that “olive” or “green” it might behoove them to get where they are going before the turn of the Y3K and mosey unhurriedly through the light. Which has been yellow for a bit.

What should have been a 10 or 12 car light at an already idiotically timed intersection has been reduced to a 1 car light.

This scene repeats itself at light after light throughout the city.

I shake my head in amazement.

I’ll never understand it.

It’s not like this in other cities.

I swear it.

Entry Filed under: General, Arcana, Thoughts