Driving in Tucson

I recently read Brian Nicklaus’ blog entry about driving in New Jersey. It’s all true. I know that for a fact because I learned to drive across the river in Bucks County, PA. We all thought that New Jersey drivers were the worst. I will say this about driving in New Jersey, I’d cross the river again just to have someone pump gas in my car at the Wawa.

Driving in Tucson has its ups and downs.

1. According to John Ensey, progeny of my friend Rose, if you maintain a constant speed of 37 MPH on Speedway [great name for a main cross town street BTW] you won’t get stopped by a red light. You might get stopped by the SUV in front of you that’s waiting for the light to change [for the 3rd time], though. John figured this out when he was about 13 years old.

2. Tucson drivers will not let you merge. The reason for this is that they assume that any car they let get in front of them is going to slow them down so they get to their destination approximately 15 seconds later.

3. Rain is to Tucson what ice and snow are to drivers from other states. We live in the desert here, so when we get rain, we tend to get a lot of it in a very short period of time. This causes flooding. It’s best to hold up where you and wait for a while. There are those people who will insist on entering a flooded wash and have to be rescued. The local news crews film these drivers and their cars so your friends and co-workers get to see your adventure on the evening news. If that isn’t bad enough, you get a bill for the rescue.

4. Parking. Park in the shade if you can find it. However, if parking at Target where the trees are at the far end of the lot, you could pass out from heat exposure before you have time to sprint to the front door and the AC.

5. The Cross Town Freeways. The WHAT!!!!! Don’t have them. The idea behind this is that the old timers [hippies who relocated from the north during the ‘60’s] think that if they continue to vote against building freeways or light rail systems that it will keep people from moving here and turning the place into Phoenix. That was about 850,000 residents ago.

6. Driving to Phoenix. Those of us who live on the east side of town have to drive a good 40 minutes just to get to I10. Once we’re on this strip of asphalt it’s one dangerous drive to the Kingdom of Maricopa [aka, Phoenix]. There are 18 wheelers, drug runners, vans full of border crossers sans documents, granma and granpa with their RVs and one or two idiots in a hurry. Once you get to Phoenix you will think you some how went too far and are in LA.

7. Crossing the border to Mexico. Piece of cake. Just a quick trip down I19 [the only highway in the US that gives distances in kilometers] and cross on into downtown Nogales. Don’t forget your Mexican insurance. Crossing back into the US...... 3 hours of stop and go through downtown Nogales. [see previous blog entry]