It’s official, sort of: This region has some pretty poor drivers. In fact, the entire Northeast scored rather low in a survey of driving knowledge conducted by GMAC Insurance. The questions covered things like you might see on a basic driving test. The 20 questions included one about when you should yield to a pedestrian at an intersection (always, whether the intersection is marked or not) and the meaning of various traffic signs.
The worst drivers in the country, according to this survey, are in Rhode Island (probably because it’s so close to Boston where driving is a full-contact sport) where respondents only got 75.1 percent of the questions correct. Washington drivers didn’t fair much better, getting only 76.5 percent right. Maryland finished in a pathetic 46th place.
Virginia did better, finishing in 28th place nationally, though I wonder if the position would have been lower had Northern Virginia been broken out separately. I know these sort of tests don’t mean a whole lot but they do provide some insight into the perception problems drivers in various regions have.
It might also be good for those who design the local driving tests to use this information when evaluating the effectiveness of their current programs.
Wilson Bridgefolks make a good call
Great call by the people overseeing the Wilson Bridge construction project to not allow the contractor to go until 5 a.m. on Monday mornings until they can prove that they can actually get the road cleared by that time. That’s the type of pro-active, quick-thinking action that I wish we had in all project managers. The contractor was not able to get some steel beams hung in time and ran about an hour and a half late getting the lanes reopened on Monday creating a significant rush-hour backup.
I should note for the sake of accuracy that I said that the fine the contractor was being hit with was $4,500 when it was actually $4,300. Bottom line: You don’t mess with the morning commute in Washington, especially on a Monday.
More people sound off about Metro’s voice
Two more takes on the Metro voice issue. Geff writes: “I was amused by the reader who said that he intends to do the opposite of what the new voice of Metro tells him to do. If he really wanted to be disruptive, he’d do far better to (1) always enter a Metro car by the center door, then (2) follow instructions to the letter. Especially the part about “When boarding, move to the center of the car” since the true geographic center of a Metro car is in the aisle between the two center doors.”
Mark wrote: “I was disappointed that you published such rude comments as were made by Dennis regarding Metro’s announcer. Referring to her as an “annoyingly bossy lady” and a “beastly woman” does nothing to help settle the issue.”
You’re right, Mark. Regardless of how frustrated passengers get at times with things we can’t control we should maintain a degree of civility and I should have refrained from printing such a “personal” attack.
Questions, comments, random musings? Write to Steve@ SprawlandCrawl.com
