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Larry Pieniazek wrote:
>
> Eric Kingsley wrote:
> >
> > In lugnet.loc.us.ma.bos, Todd Lehman writes:
> > > Larry Pieniazek wrote:
> > > > I WOULDA been there on time if my rental hadn't had a flat.
> > >
> > > I thought that rentals only got flats when people drove into curbs. ;-)
> >
> > Only when the curb is in your direct path. Those darn Massachusetts civil
> > engineers just can't seem to put those curbs in the right place. ;) .
>
> I'll say.
>
> In fact, the whole "how many lanes wide is this road" seems to be kind
> of a lost question... we have roads that wander from 1 to 3 lanes worth
> of pavement with little or no warning, lane markers that peter out for
> no reason, etc.
>
> This was one of these where I was in a 2.5 lane wide lane, trying to be
> a nice guy so people could pass me and wham, the road narrowed suddenly
> and the curb just jumped out in front of me. So to speak.
>
> Drunken Irish engineers obviously practiced here before they went to St.
> Paul
Reminds me of what happened one time when a bunch of us went to Boston
for a SF convention. We took my friends mini-van and I was driving in
Boston (combination of knowing the place just a little bit, and who felt
like driving - the owner almost never sat in the drivers seat when we
took his car). We were stopped at one of those lights where there are n
lanes at the light, and n-1 on the other side. The light turned green,
and I went. Next thing I heard was a deathly gasp from the passenger
seat. I asked what was wrong, and the owner (who was sitting in back)
nonchalantly said: "Oh, not much, you just cut off a cab." While he did
not learn to drive anywheres near Massachusetts, he got along well with
their driving style (which is not so much agressive as decisive). He
recognized that I had got the drop on the cabbie, and the cabbie knew
it, and everything was fine (except for the cabbies ego perhaps).
Speaking of curbs jumping out of nowhere, I cracked a radiator on one
once in college (RPI, Troy NY). There was this intersection which had a
left turn lane and a straight lane, the street on the other side lined
up with the left turn lane, and everything was rather compact. I was a
little distracted, and didn't make the necessary course correction to
hit the street square on. Wham. The next day I noticed my radiator was
leaking badly, of course that was the day I was driving home for
Christmas. Stopped at a service station who said, "nope, can't fix it".
So I filled up several 3 liter Mt. Dew bottles with water and stopped
frequently to top off the radiator. That trip wasn't quite as bad as the
time I got a ride home with a friend who'se tranny was leaking fluid to
the tune of a quart every 50 miles or so, we stopped half way home to
buy another case of fluid (I wonder what the store owner thought about
that...).
Of course some of the roads I've driven on while caving have even worse
problems than little curbs.
--
Frank Filz
-----------------------------
Work: mailto:ffilz@us.ibm.com (business only please)
Home: mailto:ffilz@mindspring.com
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