{"id":63,"date":"2005-05-27T11:40:53","date_gmt":"2005-05-27T17:40:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/?p=63"},"modified":"2005-05-27T11:57:33","modified_gmt":"2005-05-27T17:57:33","slug":"know-the-rules-of-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/2005\/05\/27\/know-the-rules-of-the-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Know the rules of the road?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Maybe you don&#8217;t.&nbsp; According to a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2005\/AUTOS\/05\/26\/drivers_study\/index.html\">study reported by CNN<\/a>, about 1 in 10 American drivers wouldn&#8217;t be able to pass a state driving test.&nbsp; Think you live with the worst drivers?&nbsp; You&#8217;re right if you live in the NorthEast or a mid-Atlantic state.&nbsp; The best drivers?: those in the NorthWest.&nbsp; That last one surprises me a bit, given the rash of pedestrian crosswalk accidents we&#8217;ve had lately in Seattle.&nbsp;  The classic error is when one or more cars stop for a crossing pedestrian and another car swerves around those hitting the pedestrian.&nbsp; Presumably the swerving driver thinks that the stopped cars don&#8217;t know what they&#8217;re doing &#8212; or maybe the driver isn&#8217;t thinking at all.&nbsp; Either way, the results can be disastrous.&nbsp; 3 days ago an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.komo1000news.com\/stories\/37023.htm\">11-year-old kid was seriously injured<\/a> in just that scenario.&nbsp; At my work, we have a crosswalk over a busy, 3-lane road.&nbsp; The left-turn\/middle lane complicates things.&nbsp; One time a car stopped for a group of us and seemingly out of nowhere came this black pickup truck swerving around the stopped car into the middle lane, nearly hitting us.&nbsp; I responded with a yell of disgust and the male driver flashed us the bird.&nbsp; Very nice buddie.&nbsp; Maybe this behavior shouldn&#8217;t be surprising, as the survey also showed the following:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;For instance, one out of five drivers doesn&#8217;t know that a pedestrian in a crosswalk has the right of way, and one out of three drivers speeds up to make a yellow light, even when pedestrians are present, the study said.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>All it takes is one driver and yours truly could turn out like Earl the Flat Cat &#8482;.&nbsp; Fortunately I&#8217;m a pretty cautious crosser, so no worries.<\/p>\n<p>As for <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2005\/05\/27\/Autos\/test_scores\/index.htm\">by-state survey results<\/a>, here&#8217;s a summary of those likely of interest to this group:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1. Oregon &#8211; <em>Best!<\/em><\/li>\n<li>2. Washington<\/li>\n<li>15. Alabama<\/li>\n<li>25. Tennessee<\/li>\n<li>31. Oklahoma<\/li>\n<li>49. Rhode Island &#8211; <em>Worst!<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maybe you don&#8217;t.&nbsp; According to a study reported by CNN, about 1 in 10 American drivers wouldn&#8217;t be able to pass a state driving test.&nbsp; Think you live with the worst drivers?&nbsp; You&#8217;re right if you live in the NorthEast or a mid-Atlantic state.&nbsp; The best drivers?: those in the NorthWest.&nbsp; That last one surprises [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20,27,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mrambler.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}