I would like to use today's column to retract and formally apologize for all remarks I have ever made insinuating that the drivers in Northern Nevada have brain problems. My eyes have been opened. Please forgive me.
I realized that Northern Nevada drivers are wonderful masters of traffic -- comparatively -- shortly after moving to Las Vegas, which features what has to be the most impatient, insane and incompetent set of motorists ever to take to the streets. And sidewalks.
Before this realization, I had a low opinion of Reno-Sparks drivers. My previous belief: They didn't know what they were doing. They rarely, if ever, used turn signals. They merged with the same effectiveness of mating a fruit fly with a goat. When traffic got crowded -- which is happening more and more these days in the Truckee Meadows -- they acted like they are more used to hay rides than freeway traffic.
Well ... OK. I still think Northern Nevada drivers, as a whole, have serious issues with signaling, merging and traffic. But I'll take these problems any day after encountering the Typical Las Vegas Driver (TLVD).
I will now sum up what a TLVD is like as best I can: Crazed, maniacal, stupid and unethical.
First, a TLVD treats yellow lights differently than the rest of the human species. Yeah, we've all sped up a time or two or ten to get through an intersection when a light turns yellow. But some of us, if there is plenty of time to stop before the intersection without serious brake taxation, will at least slow down. Sometimes.
But not the TLVD. If he/she/it can see a light turn from green to yellow, then the TLVD believes he/she/it has the right to go through the intersection. It doesn't matter if there are two other lights before that specific traffic signal. This means that the sane, competent drivers (estimated total in the Las Vegas metro area: 27) must actually look both ways for speeding traffic when their lights turn green.
Also, the TLVD has an issue with speed limits. Some TLVDs go under the speed limit by about 15 mph at all times, while the others go 15 mph over the speed limit at all times. It's like all the doctors are prescribing the wrong doses of Ritalin and Prozac to people.
Finally, the TLVD is impatient. Hypothetical: Let's say you are in a middle "turning" lane, trying to make a left across several lanes of oncoming traffic. If there is a more than a seven-foot gap between vehicles in those oncoming lanes, and you don't try to screech across, any drivers behind you will immediately start honking, yelling and gesturing in an unsavory manner.
Put this all together, and it's chaos.
I work in an industrial area just off of Sunset Road, a six-lane, busy thoroughfare (three lanes each way with a middle turning lane) just south of McCarran International Airport. The speed limit is 45 mph, and on one side of the road, numerous business and streets line the way.
If there is such a thing as psychotic driving hell on Earth, well, this is it.
When I drive down Sunset, I am actually going 45 mph, speeding past the people going 30 and getting sped past by the people going 60 while I dodge the people turning onto the road and A CAR JUST SWERVED IN FRONT OF ME BECAUSE THE CRETIN DRIVER IS WATCHING A DAMN PLANE LAND and there is someone pulling into the turn lane and she's honking -- no, that's not a she, that's Siegfried -- and the light is turning yellow -- HURRY HURRY HURRY AAAAAIIIIIIGGGH good lord that was scary and now I need to turn and there's a bastard in the turn lane in front of me and WHY DIDN'T THAT MORON GO THERE WAS PLENTY OF SPACE BETWEEN THOSE TWO SEMIS HONK HONK BEEP OOOOOGA HONK oops, sorry Mr. Newton.
And then, when I turn into work and park my car, it dawns on me.
I am becoming one of them. I am becoming a TLVD.
For the love of God, the next time in Northern Nevada, and you see me driving down the road ... get the hell out of the way. It's for your own safety.
Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan who apparently needs his doctor to adjust his Prozac and Ritalin prescriptions. Jimmy's column appears here Tuesdays, and a column archive may be viewed at www.jimmyboegle.com.