Road culture shock

The one thing that strikes me as odd about driving in Boise isn't the left-hand drive; I'm pretty comfortable traveling on the 'right' side of the street. Neither is it the right-turn-on-red policy, nor the dedicated middle lane for turning - that actually works pretty well in practice. Nor is it the fact that nobody parks in reverse.

It's about how every driver floors the accelerator once the light turns green.

It came as a surprise when the elderly grandmother-of-umpteen in the 4x4, idling next to me at the red light, screeched off in a blink and left me eating exhaust. It was an even bigger shock, after I gunned the throttle up to what I thought was a decent acceleration, when I glanced at the rearview mirror to see the headlights of the GMC truck behind span the entire width of the mirror.

Woah. Who cares about miles per gallon?

Equally bewildering is the average driver's propensity to brake late, and to expect everyone else to as well. My habit when overseas is to always brake early and evenly when approaching a stop, but here, more often than not, my behaviour causes the vehicle behind me to filter to the next lane where possible and suddenly pull up hard into a shuddering halt just car-lengths away.

Bang!
I wonder if their tendency to brake late was responsible for the accident we found ourselves in yesterday. We'd just come to a complete stop at a red light junction when our Mazda 6 surged forward suddenly, accompanied simultaneously by a loud thump from behind.



The driver of the Chevy claimed that her foot slipped from the brake; personally I think she just wasn't paying attention. No injuries or serious damage, but the rear bumper of the 6 had cracked and a piece of the Chevy's license plate holder had broken apart.

Later, the folks at Hertz told us that we should have called the police to make a report, as they'd make a third-party assessment of the accident. But no biggie; they'd let their insurance company handle the claim. We ended up taking a blue Camry as a replacement.



Me, I'm still going to accelerate slowly and keep my distance.

(Local time in Boise: Feb 23, 03:21 PM)