Non-yielders and some driving tips for the big city
- col-teri-stein
- July 18, 2023
- 714
My husband Joe and I recently took a wonderful three-day, two-night trip to the big city of Columbus. It was wonderful because it’s the longest trip we’ve taken since 2020 when you all know what happened. It was good to get out and see there’s another whole world beyond our rural area.
The first day was so much fun. We went to the York Steakhouse on the west side of Columbus. It is the only one remaining from the popular chain of restaurants, and they have people stop in from all over the U.S. to eat there. It was as delicious as we remember.
We may have overestimated our own stamina just a bit and planned this trip as we would have when we were younger. We also made stops at Cabela’s, Deluth Trading Company and the Polaris Mall.
Then we went north to the Tanger Outlet Center, where we did much walking around and bought ourselves each a geezer-style sun hat at the Columbia outlet. These are essential hats with an adjustable draw cord and toggle at the back to adjust your fit — what could be better?
Finally, around 4:30 p.m. we arrived at our destination, a hotel adjoining the Easton Town Center and only a block from one of my favorite places, a Trader Joe’s store.
Did we bring all this stuff for a short trip? Yes, we did. We loaded up a cart to roll all our luggage into our room. We were beginning to regret all those stops, but the No. 1 tiring thing about the trip was the traffic.
It began with our GPS, an old-style one that if a thief had looked into our car and saw it, it would have convinced them our stuff wasn’t worth stealing. The GPS was determined to take us the shortest route, even if it wasn’t the most direct and had more than the usual number of crazy drivers.
We got to the intersection where we normally would have veered right. The GPS was telling us to go left, so we did, and immediately afterward a motorcyclist cut right in front of our vehicle, practically sideways and looking like he was going to wipe out. I was relieved to see he was wearing a helmet because it appeared we were going to hit him. Welcome to Columbus.
The motorcyclist managed to straighten out and began weaving in and out of traffic.
I often quote my late great-uncle Adrian, who used to say, “There’s a person who’s afraid of dying in bed.” These people seem to be concentrated in Columbus.
Everyone is in a hurry and driving by their own set of rules. Here are a few things we learned:
—Columbus drivers never go the speed limit. For visitors to drive slower and less crazy is taking your life in your hands. You must keep up. Joe was doing an impressive job on this.
—It’s not OK to let other people pass you under any circumstances. If you are in a lane that ends and there is a car beside you and there is not another car behind that driver, it’s still important that you speed up and try to get in front to prove who is the superior driver.
—It’s OK to use an exit as a passing lane. This is something I never considered before and was shocked to see actually happen. A slower car, going only about 5 miles over the speed limit, was in front of us, along with another crazy driver. This slow car was obviously keeping the crazy driver from getting to his destination in world record time. So as we came up on an exit, the crazy driver pulls right into the exit lane, puts his (or her) car into turbo mode, gets around the slower driver and pulls back onto the highway just as the adjoining exit ramp was veering off. If it wasn’t so scary, it would have been an incredible feat. You usually see these kinds of things on TV with a crawl along the bottom that reads “don’t try this at home.”
My brother wasn’t surprised at this story. He and his family were in Columbus one time on a three-lane road that was narrowing to one lane. There were three cars driving together ahead of them. Only the center car had the right of way, so the cars on either side of that car both crashed into the center car in an attempt to get ahead.
Yielding is a thing of the past, and it could be spreading to our area. We were on I-77 yesterday in our county where an entrance ramp merged. I saw a car coming up the ramp and could see from the driver’s face he had missed the section on merging safely.
“If you can get over, get over,” I warned Joe as another driver passed us. “We got a non-yielder here.”
Yup, non-yielders, everyone needs to look out.