leftlanerightspeed

I heard a news item on the radio the other day about an 80-year-old guy who ran down a
whole crowd of pedestrians in Los Angeles. He defended his actions by saying he thought the
gas pedal was the brake. Since I was stopped in traffic at the time, down by the ferry dock, I got
to thinking.

St. John offers the automobile operator a witch’s brew of driving challenges. First, and most
obvious, is the fact that we drive on the “wrong” side of the road. Of course, it’s only wrong if
you’re used to driving on the right side. Which leads to the second challenge. We get a lot of
people coming here for the first time and renting vehicles. Tourism is our only industry. Like it or
not, St. John would be significantly different if we weren’t a touted vacation destination. It’s a fact
of life that brings with it the occasional fat man with his shirt off, the woman with her cheeks a-
flappin’ and the jeep-load of New Yorkers who find it hilarious that they’ve driven the wrong way
down a one-way alley at quitting time.

Some drivers are too inexperienced. Some are too drunk. Some are too impatient. One of the
turning points in Herman Wouk’s classic, Don’t Stop the Carnival, is the quaint habit of stopping
directly in the flow of traffic to drop off passengers or to simply have a conversation with a
passerby. In a time when everybody knew everybody else, this afforded a pleasant pause in the
adventure of navigating a broken-down jeep from one nearly inaccessible part of the island to
another. You would simply put the vehicle in neutral, take a sip of your beverage and strike up a
conversation of your own. Those days are clearly gone and that charming facet of Island life is
a fading memory.

Nowadays, the typical vehicle has its tinted windows rolled up, its driver is late for something
and the road is only wide enough to accommodate one at a time. There are some holdouts,
however, and to them I tip my cap. To them I say, “Good for you! You’re keeping a lovely
tradition alive with your flagrant blocking of traffic at the peak of rush hour.” To those who are
stalled back in line, I say, “Relax, brother. You’ll get there. Furthermore, the person you’re
rushing to meet is stopped coming the other way.”

There is another driving rule of thumb that is sadly slipping away. That is the yielding to the
uphill-moving vehicle. This requires the downhill-rolling driver to slow, pull over and sometimes
stop, while a climbing car makes it past. This is more than just a courtesy. It is, in many cases, a
safety issue. The roads are often unpaved or slippery, the vehicles underpowered or defective,
the drivers unskilled or inebriated. To suffer engine failure on an ascent often means a
skidding, death-defying slide to the bottom. Jacob’s Ladder has claimed more than one victim.

In recent years we have added a few other transportation hurdles. There are impediments much
more threatening than a herd of goats, pigs, cows, donkeys, deer or mongoose dem. The
overflowing concrete truck is one example. The smoke-belching dump truck is another. And,
don’t think that the private sector has a monopoly on menace. The VI government has provided
us with the road-hogging omnibus.

Don’t get me wrong. We have remarkably few serious auto accidents given the risks that our
roadways present. The 20-mile-an-hour speed limit could be a factor. Nobody observes it, but
still, even at thirty, reaction times are exaggerated. Public Works, either by design or by
omission, has left the overgrowth hiding some beautiful vistas. This, by default, keeps your eye
safely on the road.

It’s ridiculous to think that we will all roll our windows down, allowing the air-conditioned coolness
to escape, just to have a friendly chat with a neighbor. But, we could slow our SUVs down a
notch, take a deep breath and enjoy life in the slow lane.

- Jeff Smith