Florida's rules of the road

Editor's note: This column was originally published April 11, 2000.

Used to be, Broadway and Kingshighway were my biggest pains, traffic-wise.

Navigating around Jackson at 8 a.m. or 5 p.m. was nightmarish.

And the McDonald's on Broadway? I really had to want those McNuggets to attempt getting in and out of that drive-through. (Of course, I DID really want them. Plus a shake and fries.)

I begged the mayor to make Broadway a one-way street again. Sure, the prospect of one-way traffic seemed big-city like and a little intimidating but, deep down, I knew it would make things better. I'd no longer have to glare at the fun-loving college commuters boldly using my personal path to the office.

But a little time and distance really changes a person's perspective.

You Southeast Missouri State University students, go ahead and cruise Broadway. And you Jackson dwellers, relax and enjoy the wasted minutes spent sitting through a couple of light changes on Kingshighway.

Because, unless you've been to South Florida, you don't know what traffic is. Even St. Louis and Memphis don't have anything like it.

I think the biggest problem is there are only two decent north-and-south routes directly connecting West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami: Interstate 95 and Florida's Turnpike.

The turnpike is virtually devoid of traffic because the brainiac drivers around here don't believe the old adage that time is money. They'd rather sit on Interstate 95 for an hour than pay a lousy buck to take the turnpike.

Another problem is nearly all the drivers here are from New York, New Jersey, Cuba, Haiti or Jamaica. Midwestern natives, known for our motoring prowess, make up roughly 0.00000001 percent of the driving population. Everyone else is pretty much either observing the traffic laws of their native countries or observing none at all.

And then you have the plain old nuts.

I have seen some driving maneuvers that I've named and will attempt to describe:

* The Peripheral Visionless Lane Change. Drivers here either are completely impervious to the fact that there are cars in the lanes next to theirs or have no peripheral vision whatsoever.

* The Defiant Road Crossing. This one doesn't so much involve drivers as pedestrians. They have no respect for don't-walk signals or crosswalks and will step out onto the asphalt at any time in any place. The frequent newspaper accounts of the typical outcomes don't seem to discourage them at all.

* The Invisible Red Light. Traffic signals mean absolutely nothing to these people. I've seen four cars, yes, FOUR CARS continue to make left turns after the left turn signal has changed to red. Of course, the oncoming traffic has no intention of letting the turn-makers get away with it, so they "punish" them by broadsiding their new Jaguars.

I'm beginning to believe the radio stations are playing the same two traffic reports every day -- one for morning and one for evening. The same accidents happen, the same roadways are blocked, the same commuters arrive for work an hour late.

Maybe there's an upside to that last part, though. Imagine telling your boss you're an hour late because traffic was backed up on Kingshighway.

Heidi Hall is a former Southeast Missourian managing editor. She lives in St. Petersburg, Fla.