There’s some sort of machismo tied to how awful the traffic is in your city. Who doesn’t look on the ten worst traffic spots in the US with a little bit of pride when their city is mentioned, or disappointment when it isn’t? I am here to tell Atlantans that I’ve seen worse traffic than the usual downtown connector clusterfuck. I’ve seen worse traffic than DC’s beltway bridgelock. The city that has them both easily topped is Boston, and I say this solely on the basis of a few hours as a pedestrian in that fine city.
But Atlantans are a special breed of driver. Compared to Virginians, anyway, who — get this — obey most of the traffic laws. Atlanta is one of the few places where you can do 25 over the speed limit in the next-to-rightmost lane of an eight lane highway and get passed on the right by a tractor-trailer. So I got the use of my Dad’s truck this weekend. It’s a Dodge Dakota. Dakota: ten tons of bone crunching, car-crushing madness. I am not very confident piloting this behemoth, as from the height of the cab I can barely make out the ant-like vehicles in the neighboring lanes. But as I drive the old reflexes come back. Before the evening was through, I would get honked at, drive on the wrong side of the yellow line, and blare my own horn at some unsuspecting jerk. It felt good.