Oh yeah ... ^^^ I have to admit, I do speed, mostly only on the highways, though. But, in my defense, if you're not going at least 20 mph over the limit on our highways you'll be run off the road. And, if you think I'm exaggerating, just ask anyone else who lives here ... or better yet, come give it a try for yourself.
Nobody runs red lights where I live. They have those damned cameras at pretty much every intersection and you'll be getting a ticket in the mail if you do. And the pedestrian is king around here. You can step out into traffic pretty much anytime you want in an intersection and traffic is legally required to stop. Heck, the police departments run stings around here all the time where cadets step off the curb in front of oncoming traffic. Don't stop and there's a line of police cars waiting about a half a block down to inform you of your sin.
That reminded me of something that made me laugh out loud, standing on a street corner in Portland a few years ago. It was about 5:30, and in quick succession we saw a couple of things that were just so out of our experience living in Boston. First, most pedestrians actually stand on the sidewalk and wait for the light to change in their favor before crossing a street ... and they actually cross in crosswalks, instead of in the middle of the block!
Then, as
Mallory indicated, on a very busy boulevard a woman did step off the curb into the crosswalk at an intersection where there was not a light ... and traffic stopped for her ... in
both directions!
Finally, literally not 5 minutes later, we came to a very busy intersection and, although the light was green for the East- and west-bound traffic, because the traffic on the other side of the intersection was stopped all the cars actually stopped before the intersection and did not create a gridlock ... and the light was still green for them!
A bit of hyperbole there, but done to make a point. Unfortunately, in Boston, the typical person -- be they pedestrian or driver -- would have acted in the exact opposite manner to what I observed that day in Portland. Made me miss the home of my birth.
I also remember hearing a story on NPR several years ago. A "roving reporter" did his own informal test during his travels around the country. He kept a stopwatch with him and, at an intersection when the light turned green he would not go until someone honked, timing how long it took to get the first honk. He said in Boston it was like a nanosecond. In Portland, Oregon, he reported that, not only did no one honk but the person in the car behind him got out of their car and came to his window to see if he was okay.
I love that story.
