Driving in America – OR The Survival Guide

Only an American song would state that ‘life is a highway, I wanna ride it all night long’. And indeed life in America is driving, and Americans spend a tremendous time on the road, and as public transportation in most of the U.S. is either non-existent or has the ever-popular aroma of urine-and-human-sweat-combo, many visitors/immigrants/aliens must go through the arduous process of renting/buying/stealing a private vehicle to drive the open/busy/insane American road.


From my experience, many such visitors are a bit skittish on this process, as they perceive driving in America as dangerous/scary/more painful than a root canal with no anesthesia. So as a public service, I am here to bestow you with my knowledge of driving in America across 46 states, hundreds of thousands of miles, a car accident (not my fault, really) and a backache from driving so much.
Just like traveling into a new environment, one must understand the native species. If you go to the Amazon (the jungle, not the dot com) you would want to know if there are snakes and what to do if one attacks the guy on the bulldozer clearing its habitat, right? Think about it then as watching a National Geographic show about a region in the world and its species.


So there are easy-to-remember 8 native driver-species in the United States.
Learn these well before going out on the road in this great American habitat. Also, pick one to belong to – no room for any new species that will break the eco-system balance.
Some of these you may recognize as species from other countries – they are not indigenous to the North-Americans region. Some however, have evolved entirely in the U.S. and are currently endemic to the United States. Let’s review the ones common to other regions and to the U.S. While there are some similarities, the American kind has developed some unique and interesting characteristics:


1) The Indy 500 Racer (canis nutjobus)– this refers to the driver, most likely of the male-persuasion, who must cut every person, change lanes enough to increase the mileage of the trip by going sideways, who runs every yellow-to-red light, and for whom the 85 mph limit in some areas is simply too limiting to his 1987 Hyundai.
As mentioned, you may recognize this species from your own part of the world. What’s interesting is that as most U.S. cities are plagued by traffic, you usually meet this driver in the next light after following his tire-marks on the ground. May travel in packs of 4-5 males. Likely to have the windows down, arm and hand out, potentially holding a cigarette.
Interestingly, this species believes that this behavior might be attractive to the opposite sex. This is a strategy that proves generally unsuccessful, specifically when stopping in a red light or slow traffic to methodologically pick one’s nose. This species is also known as the dare-devil. This species is theorized to be from the same family of…


2) The Honker (howlerus monkeyus)– all odds are that this is an immigrant/visitor. As a rule of thumb, if you hear a honk in the U.S. you can bet that this person is not linked in any way to any ancestors on the Mayflower.
Quick comparison: in Israel, for example honking is a form of communication. Israelis speak Hebrew and Honkish. Standing in a red light, a car feature seems to be that the honk is connected directly to the light. Just as the electrical current is passed to the light to change from red to green, so does the honk of the driver behind you goes off to gently remind you to move forward. In the U.S. however, many times I’ve been distracted in a green light, mistakenly assuming some friendly soul will remind me to move forward, waiting about 2-3 red-green cycles without a peep from the back. But do expect to hear that from time to time, as more immigrants arrive to the U.S. While related, this kind is a distant relative of…


3) The Finger-Flipper (assholus americanus) – while our first kind, the Indy 500 Racer, definitely presents some common characteristics, this is a separate species, as you might see a nice kind man or woman, who just decides to give you that friendly gesture for taking the right lane in front of them etc. In the urban habitat, attempt not to return the favor, as that nice 54-year old lady driving her Ford may then draw her 45 mm semi-automatic machine gun to 'spray some good lead-sense into you'.


4) The Tentative-non-Attentive – quite separate, this is a very shy species, that can be as dangerous as the Indy Racer.
Generally, very confused, and can be equated to the African Antelope– both will follow the crowd, but by themselves are prime candidates for predators.
Parking into drawn-out parking spot head-on takes anytime between 10-15 minutes. Parallel parking – the better part of an hour. Getting out of parallel parking – they’d prefer to purchase a new car and leave the other one there. All these are part of the off-chance they actually remember where they actually parked.
These species generally never remember how to get to places they’ve been to before, and when giving out directions they would use instructions that should never be used in such context such as ‘take a right at the flower’, ‘take a left at the fence’ or just ‘go up, then down, then back’.
When actually driving, they would be consumed by what they hear on the radio, their cell phone conversation or simply a pretty butterfly, and simply ignore you if you move slowly into their lane with a large vehicle.


The second half are those generally unique to the U.S.:


5) The Tank-driving, Cell-phone Speaking and Coffee-holding Blond – a special kind, that is exploding across the United States. A relative of species #4. If encountering a combination of both, run for the hills. On foot. Leave the car behind. While all blond drivers belong to this class, many non-blonds belong to this group as well, creating some difficulty in identifying these, but some signs are helpful:
A) Look for a vehicle large enough to haul lumber and bricks to outposts in Alaska, while never leaving the 5 block radius in the suburb. In fact, blondness, size of vehicle and bad driving are all positively correlated. Mini-SUV? Probably coloring hair. Hummer that can haul a NASA spaceship? Probably a real blond.
B) Look for a fence or a dumpster the vehicle is dragging behind without the driver knowing so.
C) Look for a vehicle slowly but directly slipping through different lanes. Upon honking to alert it, this species will be startled and will attempt to steer back to original lane with the knees, as one hand is holding the cell-phone and another holding the Grande-$7-starbucks frappuccino that might sustain an African village only by using its cream on the top, but it’s part of the diet because, you know… it has ‘splenda instead of sugar’.
D) Generally, every driveway, or parking structure with black marks on the wall within the height of an SUV front bumper is a clear sign of footprints of such a driver, as if they marked that territory.


6) The Anemic–Sickly—Blinker-Turtle (tortoise) – a special species – unlike the others, while virtually extinct in some areas, thriving on others – prefer the heat. Look out for this species in the Phoenix and Florida general areas. If you follow one on a single-lane – it is preferable to stop on the side and let them continue. Even if you stop for an hour, you are most likely to catch up very quickly.
Do not find yourself caught behind one turning left. After the first 10 minutes, your heart rate may synchronize with their left blinking signal.


7) The Environmentalist-Annoyer-Hybrid (pompous americanus) – the newest species that started being observed only in the past 5 years. As Americans would rather be caught dead than taking public transportation (and in a few years, they probably will be), they have selected a different route.
While the real reason for buying the new hybrid vehicles – combining gas and electrical technologies – was of course the rise of gas prices, this quite conniving species will try to convince you that they did it ‘to be green’. A newer oxymoronic phenomenon are those who drive the SUV hybrid for ‘environmental reasons’, which still takes more gas than a regular size gas-only vehicles.
This species are suffering from some superiority complex, as they feel they single-handedly saved the Earth by switching to a vehicle that uses just a bit less of gas than the previous one, and that they are therefore significantly better than you. If attacked, simply point out that until they stop drinking bottled water that was shipped from Fiji, drinking coffee that was shipped from Brazil and are living in hills that were cleared enough trees for their pool, which is never used, they should shut up.


8) The Other – orchestrating classical music, shaving, brushing hair, brushing teeth, brushing pets, applying make up, applying for a bank loan, applying for college, reading the newspapers, writing a poem, writing a will, urinating, changing clothes, changing jobs, painting toenails, petting a pet, filing taxes, having sex, or doing anything other than actual driving – Driver – generally can be found in the Los Angeles area. Stories abound regarding such sightings, especially around the I-405 freeway. Most of these will be done with two hands, while the wheel is being steered with the knees (unless those are needed for the mentioned activity; in that case then, it’s just a mystery).


Bon voyage, good luck, and may God have mercy on your soul (but get a really good insurance, as those insurance companies will take God to court, and will win!)