Massholes

It was one thing to learn to become a pedestrian in Cambridge.

As a New York native, I have come to appreciate a certain set of rules regarding pedestrian-traffic interaction. You cross the street—quickly—when no cars are coming. You step off the curb to get a better view of the street, and to be ready when that elusive traffic-gap comes.

So it’s unbelievably irritating when here, as soon as you step off the curb, cars start slowing down. Is this guy stopping to let me cross? Is he making a left? Is he looking for parking? If he actually does stop, it will be all of eighteen inches from my right kneecap.

But while walking in Cambridge has been a bother, I’ve recently gotten off the sidewalk and onto the road. There I’ve discovered the real demons: Boston drivers.

Yes, the popular term is “Masshole,” but that’s something of a misnomer. You see, the trouble with Boston drivers is not really that they’re jerks on the road—I’ve driven alongside my share of New York cabbies and asphalt cowboys. Boston drivers are a different breed. Their driving wavers somewhere between oblivious and schizophrenic. They stop dutifully in the left lane at a stoplight because that’s the lane they were driving in—even though there’s nobody in the other lane. They fade between lanes with no semblance of purpose—or sometimes even intention. I’ve driven in front of buses at night that had no lights on. More than once, someone has tried to merge in from the right—right into my passenger door.

That’s the thing. Boston drivers aren’t bad, they’re scary. Congratulations, folks: you frighten me.

To be fair, it’s not just something in the water. The more I drive around this town, the more I realize how little sense it makes. The concrete spaghetti that crisscrosses the landscape is unbelievable. Every time I comment on this, someone explains: “Boston is a really old city.” I appreciate that. But this argument does not explain the horrible signage and inexplicable lack of lane lines in so many places. Also, the Big Dig was not inevitable. Urban planning? Anybody?

Of course, besides the transient fears of being sideswiped, rear-ended, or run off the road, my lingering apprehension is that the Boston driving style will somehow rub off—that I’ll somehow become hesitant and aimless, like so many of my fellow drivers. I fear that soon the transformation will be so complete that I won’t survive on the streets of my own city.

Luckily, there is a remedy: spending time with sane drivers. And since moving off campus—which was why I brought a car here in the first place—I’ve actually found some: the after-hours shuttle drivers. Not only are they awesome because they’ll pick me up anywhere on campus in the middle of the night and take me home, but the way they maneuver those awkward buses contributes some sanity to this city’s roadways. Now if they could only take me to the grocery store, I’d have a chance to save my driving soul.

Susan E. McGregor ’05, a Crimson editorial editor, is a special concentrator in Interactive Information Design associated with Quincy House.