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Edition 50

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Letter from America Number 4

Hello everybody, I can’t believe that we have been living here in Atlanta for 18 months now and I also can’t believe that I have written 3 previous “letters” without discussing this topic – the traffic!!

In many ways Atlanta is a fantastic place to live.  For example, I’m writing this article on Sunday March 8th, I am sitting in my shorts, it's 77°F outside and I have just had a lovely and relaxing meal for very few dollars with some friends on a roof-garden restaurant downtown.  From that restaurant I could see the world’s biggest aquarium (a fantastic day out – they have 3 whale sharks!); the worlds biggest drive in restaurant; the tallest hotel outside of Asia, and the well designed urban park that grew up around the site of the 1996 Olympics, which now houses the global headquarters for Coca-Cola and CNN.  But, the extraordinary fact about the city is the traffic and this week it has just been announced that we now officially have the worst commute in the whole of the USA. 

Here’s a challenge for all GT readers.  If you could choose one picture of the place where you live, unadorned and true to its spirit, capable of giving those who had never been there a shadow of what it feels like to actually live there, what image, whether oblique or direct, moody or humorous, would you show and stand by?  I’m sure your editor would love to see your efforts for Grampound.  But, here’s mine for Atlanta.  Rush hour on the “Downtown Connector” – 8 lanes on each side of the road and no-one going anywhere.  One big frustrating smoggy carpark!

Here’s the main reason for the problem.  Although Atlanta proper is fairly compact with a population of less than 500,000 people, the suburbs and satellite towns stretch forever.  “Greater Atlanta” covers 6126 square miles.  A look at Wikipedia gives 1376 square miles for the area of Cornwall so that gives you some idea of how big our suburbia is.  45% of all of Georgia’s population live in metropolitan Atlanta – that’s around 4 million people.  Every day it seems like all of those people get in their cars (only ever one person per car) and head from the suburbs to the city centre.  Every day Atlantans commute 40 million miles – day after day after day.  The carbon footprint of this one city is terrifying!  The strange thing is that no-one seems willing to tackle this reality - they just keep building further and further out.  Atlanta is one of the fastest growing cities in the US with over 100,000 people moving here every year since the early 1990’s.  We have no water (we are officially still in a drought), public transport is laughable and yet it still keeps growing.  One day we’re going to wake up and not be able to reverse out of the drive, it will be solid traffic on every square inch of the city.

The other thing that is worth noting, which makes it even more interesting, is that Georgians are truly awful drivers.  For example, no-one ever uses their indicators.  In fact, the only reason you ever see an Atlantan with his turn-signal flashing is because the dealer left it on and they don’t know how to switch off that annoying clicking noise.  I think the belief here is that indicators are just clues as to your next move in road battle so never use them!.

Here are some rules of the road I have learnt since living here.
Under no circumstances should you leave a safe distance between you and the car in front of you no matter how fast you're going. If you do, the space will be filled in by somebody else putting you in an even more dangerous situation.

The faster you drive through a red light, the smaller the chance you have of getting hit.

Braking should be done as hard and late as possible to insure that your antilock braking system kicks in to give you a nice relaxing foot massage as the brake pedal pulsates.

The electronic traffic warning system signs are not there to provide useful information; they're just to make the city look progressive and to take away all hope - when you see that the expected journey time to your exit (5 miles ahead) is 45 minutes.
Never pass on the left when you can pass on the right.  It's a good way to scare people entering the highway.

Speed limits are arbitrary figures to make Atlanta look as if it conforms with other state policies; they are given only as suggestions.
Just because you're in the left lane and have no room to speed up or move over doesn't mean that the driver flashing his lights behind you doesn't think he can go faster in your spot.
Always slow down and rubberneck when you see an accident or even a person changing a tire. If you're lucky, you may see the unwitting breakdown victim get mugged.
Learn to swerve abruptly. Atlanta is the home of high-speed slalom driving thanks to the city authorities, who put potholes in key locations to test drivers' reflexes and keep them on their toes.
It is traditional in Atlanta to honk your horn at cars that don't move the instant the light changes. The state is founded upon such traditions of “southern charm”.
You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive here.
However, there is one secret to avoid most of the problem.  If you live inside the city and work outside in the suburbs, like I do, you get the whole 8 lanes almost to yourself.   You can watch with a smug expression all those hapless souls parked up on the other side of the freeway in the morning and then again at night as you return.
But, thank goodness that no matter how long I live here I won’t get into any bad driving habits.  I tell you, some of these drivers are a real hazard.  On my way to work one morning this week on the Interstate, I looked over to my left and there was a woman in a red Mustang doing 85 miles per hour with her face up next to her rear view mirror putting on her eyeliner!  I looked away for a couple seconds and when I looked back she was halfway over in my lane. It scared me so bad I dropped my electric shaver in my coffee, and it spilled all over my open lap-top!

Chris Paynter