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!)

Misperceived In America OR Camels, Leprechauns and the deputy-sheriff's wife, oh my

In that night, as part of the American marathon trip my friend Idan and I took that included seeing some thirty odd states in some two and a half months, we drove our way through Florida to get to Miami. Now, even the ‘See Florida’ campaign doesn’t include the area we were at that night. It was Florida, and yet – nothing to see. No mouse, no girls in Bikini (and sometimes without) on the beach, no space shuttles, not even elderly Jewish people who can’t figure out a voting ballot. Actually, there is probably a fairly good chance we were the first and only Jewish people in that town who didn’t rush through the town to get to Bingo night. It was November 1996.

We just got there driving straight from Atlanta the whole night. You see, we thought we came up with the genius plan of actually driving all night, checking into a motel in about 7am, get a night sleep, wake up, stroll around whatever town we were in, and get another night’s sleep for the price of one. So we were able to very Israelically-like ‘screw the system’ and get more out of it. Of course, we risked our lives by driving straight for some 14 hours throughout the night, but man – saving some $27 for a motel night was really worth it (it wasn’t that bad really – no cockroaches – even they had standards).

After the much recommended 4 hour sleep in the morning (after which, the plan didn’t look that appealing anymore, so we did this only about 5 more times that trip) and a stroll around town, we decided to do our laundry in the local Laundromat. Already, quite a foreign idea to us (we grew up where laundry came from cloth lines in the window or the yard – you know, like movies about the 30s in New York…); we walked in quite confused.

After much figuring things out and after sacrificing a couple of white socks to the pink gods, we put in another batch when a woman that seems around very early 20s with some 3 children started talking to us. Now, it’s not that I want to pre-judge, but it’s been some 8 years now, so I’ll post-judge. Feeling like walking into a movie, this woman (I want to say Charlynn here), seemed to be a Jerry Springer refuge. I could have sworn that there was a Yee-haw waiting to come out with any sentence. She was the deputy sheriff’s wife – I mean, you can’t make that up nor can it get better than that. One of her first questions to us was our religion, which I already found odd. You meet someone new and your first question is – ‘so… Muslim eyh?’ Or ‘so do you do the whole Vishnu thing?’

Anyway, my friend quickly responded we were Jewish. That triggered a response that I would recognize again in the future – a complete awe as if we just mentioned we were actually Leprechauns. In an amazing combination of a subtle and yet rude retreat she disappeared to another side of the Laundromat.

Idan and I sat waiting for the machine, watching the woman chasing what seemed to be continuously multiplying number of children. Much like Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, each time she was able catch one child and stop him from wrecking havoc, the other two seemed to multiply and create even more chaos.

For two full load cycles, she was running around the place, passing us a few times, until she gave up on her trying, her children and her racism, sitting next to us hard of breath.”So… where are you from exactly, boys?” she asked as she was looking at her rascals running around.
“From Israel” I replied. This created a 180 degrees u-turn in her attitude. I don’t believe that in her mind there was any correlation between being Jewish and being from being Israel. At that point, her attention completely switched from her children to us.
“No kidding” she said thrilled. “Were you in the army?”
Part confused, part proud Idan said: “Yes. We were both in the army for three years”.
“So you had guns and shot A-rabs and all?” If this was a movie, it would have been too unbelievable and over-the-top.
She continued asking us questions about the army, manifesting an alarming knowledge of guns for a person who had never been in the armed forces herself.
After covering the army, she summarized it all with an enthusiastic “Wow, the army, huh?” We nodded quietly. “And when you go back to Israel will you be working not in the army?”
“That’s right”, I said.
And then, after this whole conversation, she asked a question that would in some ways define many future interactions I had in the United States. “So, do you use camels to go to work?”

Idan and I were both speechless. A first for Israelis anywhere. Idan tried to patiently explain to her for the next 15 minutes that Israel is very modern with highways, and Internet and financial markets and high-tech industry (and yet, the chosen people never mastered the Laundromat thing). But that was the equivalent of convincing her that us leprechauns were actually pink and tall.

Indeed, I witnessed different sophistication levels in different areas of the U.S. and with different people, but this experience - the disconnect in her mind between being Jewish and being from Israel, as well as her question, repeated itself in a surprising amount of times in different variations. Just the overall concept of it is enough to amaze – she did think we ‘go to work’. She didn’t ask if we work in the fields, or if we hunt Zebras in the wild. She did have the concept of some kind of Western-like work, but that we used camels to get there. And camels. Not horses, or even bicycles. Camels.

For the record – Idan tried to explain to her that both of us actually never rode a camel in our lives. Now that I think about it, it wouldn’t be so bad – probably take care of a lot of traffic problems and the west’s dependence on oil. You think maybe this is the secret of Saudi Arabia and all – using Camels instead of cars and selling all that extra oil to the west?

We eventually left the Laundromat and had some crazy / interesting story to tell back home. But that whole experience was the first in a long sequence of such encounters. In many ways, this is how many Americans – sophisticated and ‘sophisticated-challenged’ still see myself and others – camel-riding foreigners.
Riding camels to work? A few years later in Israel I ended up driving an old Subaru to my University and to work. Kind of ironic...