Driving Around New York City

By: Axel Boustead

Driving around New York City was really never meant to be just a fun, relaxing pastime. No one has ever said, “Honey lets take a Sunday afternoon drive through the Lower East Side”, or “Gee, it would be nice to drive out to Kanarsee to see the Autumn color change.” What they are more likely to say is something like,”You want me to drive you where? You want me to sit in traffic for an hour just so you can visit your mother! What do you think I am, a car service? Just take the train!”

 

OK, so driving around New York City is tough and takes determination, stamina and patience. Sure, all of that is fine, and I can do that- but what about the potholes? Ever drive down the BQE or the Belt Parkway and hit a pothole the size of a garbage can lid? Usually it just takes one experience with an authentic NYC Godzilla pothole to turn you into a living pothole detection scanner. Just drive down the BQE one day and check out the wild looking, wide eyed expressions on almost every driver’s face. See how they tightly grasp their steering wheels, ready in a fraction of a second to produce some wildly evasive maneuver that will keep them and their cars from crashing into a pothole that in other parts of the country could pass for a mine shaft.

Yes, driving in New York City definitely can be challenging. But look at the positive side- it builds positive character traits like patience and determination, and also improves a persons perceptual vigilance and physical coordination. And then if someone cuts you off or steals your parking space, you can also practice those great rhetorical skills that so many New York drivers have managed to cultivate on their daily jaunts about town.