Some Things Never Change

“If you don’t like the weather around here, wait a while and it will change.” People say that to visitors in Wilmington. They also say it in New York, Colorado, and Iowa. Everywhere I’ve lived or visited someone will make that comment and look at you expectantly for admiration, as if they’ve said something clever and original.

People like saying it so much I expect you can hear it in Death Valley or Hawaii, where in fact the weather never does change.

Another comment you hear everywhere is “Drivers around here sure are terrible.” This one is true, because drivers are bad everywhere. I’m a bad driver. I know this because my daughters have taken many opportunities to tell me so. On the whole, though, Wilmington drivers seem no worse than drivers elsewhere, but they are bad in their own way.

Did you hear about the Yankee who came to Wilmington and cornered the market on replacement turn-signal bulbs? He went broke, of course. Turns out you can’t burn out a bulb without ever using it.

Everyone has their pet peeves about other drivers, and mine is that Wilmington drivers don’t know how to make left turns. Let’s say a driver is on a side street and wants to turn left onto a multilane thoroughfare such as College Road. They have a green light, but there’s traffic coming towards them, and they can’t immediately turn left. So what do they do?

When I took driver’s ed, we were taught that in such situations you pull up to the middle of the intersection and wait for the opportunity to turn. You’re not blocking anyone, and when a gap occurs or the light turns yellow, you can make your left turn. This keeps traffic moving and makes perfect sense.

Many Wilmington drivers, however, don’t pull into the intersection. They wait patiently behind the white stop line on the side street. Because they’re fifty feet from the lane they want to enter they need a large gap in oncoming traffic to make the turn. Often it never comes. Then the light turns yellow and they’re stuck until the next green light.

A few years ago I was on Racine Drive behind a car that was trying to turn left onto New Centre Drive. This was before the city installed a turn arrow on the stop light. A steady stream of student cars heading to UNCW prevented the driver from turning, parked as she was behind the white line, far from the intersection.

The light turned red. Then it turned green. Then it turned red again. Only on the third green light was she able to make her left turn.

I of course was amused the whole time, softly chuckling at the absurdity of it all. No, that’s not what I was doing. I was not amused. I was engaging in my habit of talking to other drivers who can’t hear me, and by the third green light I was shouting, “Pull into the #*&@% intersection, you moron!”

I don’t doubt these drivers think they are doing exactly what they are supposed to do, which is admirable in some way. It isn’t their fault that they never learned. Driver’s ed instructors in our county are dedicated professionals who teach a rigorous 36-hour course. But funding for the program is inadequate, and they can teach a student only so much with six hours behind the wheel. Those who don’t take driver’s ed in high school end up with a quickie one-week course from a commercial driving school.

Our local drivers may not know how to turn left, but they believe they’re being good drivers, and we can’t blame them. So the next time you’re stuck behind one, don’t get angry. Just remember the famous saying: “If you don’t like the driving around here, wait a while and the light will change.”