DRIVEN TO DIS-TRACTION

Written as only a man who’s just spent several days knocking around the upper Midwest can do.

Being A Catalog of Midwestern Highway Sins, on Behalf of Both the Driver and the Designer of the Road (with Noted Observances of Each)

Part the First: Sins of the Driver

• Timid freeway-entrance merging (Minneapolis)
• Malicious speed-limit obedience (Des Moines)
• Passing on the right when there is no reason not to pass on the left (Minneapolis)
• Being undecided about whether to drive 10 MPH below the speed limit, or 35 MPH above it (Illinois)
• Hurrying up to enter a roadway in advance of a vehicle, in total ignorance of the two miles of empty road behind said vehicle (Iowa)
• Refusing to drive in the right lane despite the fact that your vehicle is moving slower than continental drift (Wisconsin)
• Unusual incidence of peeing-Calvin decals (Missouri, Kansas)
• Deification of rusty Volvo 240s (St. Paul, MN)

Part the Second: Sins of the Engineer

• Developing a grandiose freeway plan, then building only a tiny fraction of it (Milwaukee, Omaha)
• Posting purely fictional speed limits (Beltline Highway, Madison, WI)
• Thinking that posting a “PODUNK, NEXT SIX EXITS” sign at the edge of a town of 200 people is hilarious (Iowa)
• Funneling all traffic into or out of major shopping areas into single access points, then not placing traffic signals at those access points (numerous Minneapolis suburbs)
• Believing that people who don’t work downtown will gladly pay to park there for shopping and/or entertainment, when the mall is a lot closer to where they live anyway (just about everyplace)