South Carolinians and the Water Madness

South Carolinians drive like assholes. I've lived here for over 20 years (I actually learned to drive here) and am fully qualified to make that statement. If you don't believe me on my authority and need facts to back this up, we have some of the highest car insurance rates in the country. There is a reason for this.

Of course part of it is that our major roads and intersections (at least in Greenville) are apparently designed by a man who spends his time, when not at the drafting board, in a comfy padded cell. Many of the original roads are purportedly actual cattle trails that were later paved. For the record, cows are notably poor city planners. Additionally, in much of the state you have to have a full tank of gas and a friend in the know to find a road sign. If you don't know where you're going here, you are SOL (GPS direction systems are helping with this problem) .

But the biggest problem, as with much of the problems here, comes from the virulent juxtaposition of types of citizenry.

First, there are the people who drive as if their ass is on fire, and the nearest hydrant is in the next state. These poeple go as fast as possible at all times, and under all conditions. They don't feel they are making progress if they aren't executing stunts worthy of an episode of "The Dukes of Hazard" (despite the fact that a disproportionate number of these drivers are transplanted yankees). Or if they aren't airborne at least 25% of the time. Or if their passengers are able to a) read any roadsigns (if they are in such an area and well-connected enough to find some); or b) un-clench their butt-cheeks from the death grip they have on the seat when/if they arrive at their destination.

Next, there are the white-knucklers. These people either a) have had their birthday announced by Al Roker more than once; b) are members of a group that either can't afford or doesn't believe in automobile insurance and/or can't really afford or don't own the car they're in; or c) were apparently frightened by a Big Wheel as a small child and have never recovered. They are in large part drivers of either a) used mini-vans; or b) very large, mainly steel cars not in production since WWII. The men wear hats. The women are many times visible only as a puff of white hair protruding (slightly) above the steering wheel. If they are younger, and of the mini-van persuasion, there are frequently more children in the car running amok than they have limbs to swat them all with. These are the people who signal for half a mile, then come to a dead stop and get a protractor and pad out of the dash to work out the geometry of making a right-hand turn. In rush hour traffic, if at all possible.

The third group are the Curious Bubbas. These are people who just wander in from the hills from time to time to get in line in front of me at the grocery store. They are dumbfounded and bewildered by the "big city" (i.e. the roads are paved), and consequently don't pay enough attention to the road. They change lanes without signaling, or indeed on two lane roads, driveways, or parking lots. Imbued with some vesitgial instinct from possums and/or skunks (whether by volume of consumption {and hence osmosis} or by actual inheritance we may never be able to difinitively discern), they instinctively locate the center divider of the closest and busiest highway, and crash into it. In rush hour traffic, if at all possible.

Next come the nouveaux riche "soccer mom" set. They enter the road from gated communities. They glide along burning ridiculous amounts of fossil fuel and emitting copious amounts of environmental toxin, in huge, insanely over-priced cars and sunglasses, talking on cell phones (!!) through the remnants of copper frost lipstick as they simultaneously try to avoid either spilling their latte on their designer whatever or smudging their recently manicured nails. Not that they like coffee, mind you, but because it is The Thing to do. Their husbands smoke cigars for the same reason. They are inordinately fond of ridiculous vehicles like the Cadillac Escalade - a SUV with fucking seat-warmers, designed for valet parking, that would drop the transmission on the ground if it was actually taken off-road. They drift lackadaisically from lane to lane in process like great listing cruise ships, because after all the right-of-way (or for that matter the lives of others on the road) could not possibly be as important as Mother knowing that little Cassidy has been chosen as the point girl at next month's dance recital this minute. They can usually be found sitting catty-cornered in the middle of an intersection, blocking anyone else from moving while continuing the aforementioned inane bibble-babble on the fucking phone. In rush hour traffic, if at all possible.

Because highway 85 is the "artery of the East Coast", we also have an inordinate amount of truckers coming through here, either on their way North, or commuting between Atlanta GA and Charlotte NC. This stretch of road is routinely featured in top ten lists of the most dangerous places to drive in America. These long-distance truckers, despite laws to the contrary, are kept awake for days at a time. Many times with the help of stimulant drugs that make them inordinately jittery and cause psychotic symptoms as a side-effect. They regularly flip over. In rush hour traffic, if at all possible.

Sprinkled in amongst all this craziness are the poeple like me. Regular schmoes who actually get in the car to drive (not talk on the phone, do makeup, deal with suppressed trauma, or de-tox). People who want to get where they are going in a reasonable amount of time (seeing the car as niether a microwave/time-machine, or as a fortress moving through enemy territory), preferably with both car and sanity intact. There are simply too damn few of us.

It's an uneasy trail mix at the best of times. But when you add water , everything goes completely haywire. In addition to the usual crazy, precipitation evokes some strange primordial dread in South Carolinians. There is a regression to reptilian-brain thought process that goes something like "water from sky - bad!"

The white-knucklers immediately slow their speed to a crawl. This makes the ass fire brigade even more impatient than usual, and they increase the hazardous nature of their stunts to defcon-1 in an attempt to get around them. The soccer moms and curious bubbas revert to their primal natures. The soccer moms immediately move to the nearest intersection and begin conversations on cell phones, while the bubbas move immediately to the nearest concrete highway divider. Said divider mesmerizes them into a fugue state in which they play an endless game of chicken/bumper cars with it until a) they crash into it; or b) the sky clears and the road dries. No points for guessing it's usually a). All groups are irresistably drawn to the proximity of transfer trucks before the inevitable accidents begin, causing transfer trucks to start flying through the air like Ukranian tumblers.

In the case of a small accident, there is a temporary slow-down that is actually not much safer, as the uninitiated might infer. Even the white-knucklers are unhappy crawling along in a traffic jam, but the pressure in the ass fire brigade is slowly rising as they find it impossible to execute automobile aeronautics at this speed. The only manoeuver available to them is to tail-gate. With reckless disregard and disproportionate passion. They want every inch of progress available at the soonest possible instant. As the white-knucklers creep along and the soccer moms decide to simultaneously drift to a new lane, it's eventually impossible to avoid a string of rear end pile-ups, thus effectively snarling traffic in such a manner as to require successive generations to finally sort it all out. This is usually the end of the cycle, as by the time the roads are finally cleared, the rain (or snow, or whatever) has usually ended. But if not, or if rush hour has not ended, or if there is still residual dampness on the roads, that may be enough to start the whole cycle again. Additionally, crazed ass fire brigade members, exiting the other side of a miles long traffic jam, can emerge sufficiently enraged to cause another accident, thus re-setting the snarl system.

This complex system is the reason that sometimes I just can't make it home from work in less than two hours.