Aug. 2
Grandson Alexander the Great, usually a
mellow, jovial lad, has a pet peeve about Las
Cruces.
“Nobody uses their turn signals here,” he
remarked, during a recent visit, also noting that “A big chunk of Main Street is
closed but I never see anybody working on it.”
With the astuteness of relatively new
drivers, he paid careful attention to speed limits and pointed out the
transgressions of our fellow travellers.
Maybe I’ve become used to relying on my
psychic Spidey-senses on our roads, but after Alex cited several incidents of
lane changes and abrupt turns without signaling, I began to notice that he’s
right.
Perhaps it’s not drilled into kids here as
it is in other parts of the country. To this day, my turn-signal training is so
ingrained in my muscle memory that I automatically signal even while pulling
into or out of my own driveway at the crack of dawn, when there are no other
cars on the road for miles.
It’s summer in New Mexico and while road rage doesn’t boil
at the temperatures of other places I’ve lived, we can get a little crabby.
What bugs you? Chances are, something
traffic-related is in the mix somewhere.
I’m not fond of trucks and other
high-profile vehicles that pull far out in the left turn lane and block the
view for those of us trying to turn right.
And speaking of trucks, though it is not
something that interests me personally, I’ve been trying to be sympathetic to
those who love mudding or bogging or whatever the extreme mud fans are calling
it nowadays.
It was tough, however, during a period when
my then-next door neighbors were mudding enthusiasts. Looking at their muddy
truck was one thing. It was actually rather impressive, kind of a giant Pigpen
version of those water and sand sculptures we made when we were kids. But when
they finally got around to washing the filthy behemoth in their driveway, they
somehow managed to inundate the whole block with tenacious mud that lingered
for weeks.
And then there are the jerks who ignore
warnings to merge left or right due to a lane closure ahead, and then glide
arrogantly to the head of the about-to-end closed lane and expect to be let in,
long before those of us who have gracefully and patiently merged, thus causing
a traffic jam for everybody.
On the other hand, I am all for letting
people into traffic when they are stuck through no fault of their own and feel
it is karmically correct and the right thing to do, even if you get the
occasional person who decides, instead of making a right turn, to endanger
himself and others by trying to instead make a left turn across four lanes of
rush-hour traffic.
Even our relatively mild gridlock issues can
be trying. When my ten-minute commute to work turns into 20 or even (gasp!) 30
minutes, if there’s an accident at rush hour, I try to remind myself of loved
ones who suffer daily two-to-three-hour commutes, many at an agonizingly
stressful snail’s pace.
Truth to tell, if misery is relative, we
have very little to complain about. I think about that every time I drive to El Paso, where there
seems to be a lot more honking and impatience and reckless maneuvers, usually
at higher speeds and in more hazardous conditions.
Near my former home in Florida, a paranoid,
gun-totting driver shot and killed an unarmed homeless man who, witnesses later
said, was simply reaching out to accept what he thought was a donation from a
kindly soul in a passing car.
Alex and I also kept track of incidences of
kindness and courtesy during our travels and total numbers of good deeds were
impressive. As we ventured off the beaten paths, I was also pleased to note the
continuing New Mexico
tradition of smiling and waving at strangers as trucks and cars pass on
isolated roads.
All in all, there’s a lot more to be
grateful for than there is to grumble about here, we concluded.
S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com, @derricksonmoore on Twitter and Tout, or call
575-541-5450.
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