The View from Highland Ranch
By John McCormick
I was driving through Hamilton the other day, in a bit of a hurry, but I slowed drastically just before the one-lane bridge because there was an SUV on the other side and I wanted to give him a chance to go first if he was in a bigger hurry than I was. That driver was already stopping though, so I went over the bridge and gave him a friendly wave which he returned and we both went on our merry ways.
Nothing unusual around here, but it got me thinking how different that would have been in some other places I've lived.
In Northern, hot-tubbing California, the other driver would have first hesitated, then stopped until I moved forward, then cautiously crept onto the bridge, causing me to slam to a stop, then he would have tried to slowly edge past me, delaying us both.
In Boston the other driver would probably have chased after me, politely stopped me and asked me what I meant by the gesture I had made. Then, satisfied, he would have driven on to his university job and applied for a grant to do a study on North American Gesturing and Vehicle Self Actualization.
In L.A. we would have normally exchanged a few wild gunshots just to keep in the spirit of things. It's safe enough to do that sort of thing in L.A., especially if you're well-known. After all, out there you get a slap on the wrist and a few hours serving soup to the homeless for grand larceny the same crime that would get you 3-5 in the big house if you committed it around here while carrying half a pharmacy in your pocket.
In New York City the other driver would have assumed I was making an obscene gesture, routinely returned it, and we would have both proceeded without giving the incident a second thought. Of course if the other driver weren't an 80-year-old grandmother then the situation could get nasty.
Which reminds me, you may have heard the expression "in a New York Second" and never known what it actually was. My cousin used to be a hot "shot" (that was an "O" not an "I"; what a difference a single letter can make!) lawyer, just another worm in the Big Apple, so to speak, so I have spent some time in the city and I can authoritatively explain that a New York Second is the shortest period of time which can be accurately measured. The precise definition is: "The time between when a light turns green and the first cabbie honks his horn at you."
There is an even shorter period of time which has never been accurately measured. It occurs in the same situation where the cab driver behind you politely reminds you that the light has changed, except that the intersection is completely blocked with cross-traffic and it's impossible to move even if you wanted to. Most scientists consider the interval before the first horn sounds in those circumstances to be so brief as to be immeasurable in any practical sense.
If this had occurred in Washington DC, rather than Hamilton, the other driver would have pulled into the middle of the road at the far end of the bridge, blocking traffic both ways. He would then get out, stop any other drivers who came along, and hold a debate with himself over the need for a wider bridge, send for an engineer, and go around to the other drivers he had stopped and grab some money from them to pay for a study or two. In the end he would hire his brother-in-law to build a four-lane bypass, and put up a toll gate which he would hire his sister to operate, but only during the hours of 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., closing the bridge the rest of the day as being uneconomical to operate.
By then the stream would have dried up; everyone else would have found another way to get home; and the original driver would then turn around and go home without ever crossing the bridge himself, this time driving the new Caddy donated to his campaign fund by his brother-in-law the contractor.
All in all, I believe I prefer Hamilton.
Copyright 2003, John A. McCormick, Inc.
