Being Jeff Stone

I was born and raised in the California Bay Area. I’ve also spent quite a few years in the New England Area back east. I have traveled to many other places during my years in the Navy. I’ve driven in San Francisco during rush hour. I’ve driven in New York City, Chicago, Orlando, and New Jersey. I’ve even driven in St Croix, which is full of Americans driving on the “wrong” side of the road. Yet In all of my traveling and driving, I’ve never seen anyone worse, anyone crazier, or anyone more dangerous than a native Utahan at the wheel of an automobile.

It’s a rainy day, and I have my whole family (wife and two kids) in the Subaru. I’m attempting to merge with traffic on a main road in Orem, Utah. The roads are wet and slick. The rain is falling so hard that visibility is worse than a smoggy Los Angeles Afternoon. A blur of cars is zooming by me in the left lane at about fifty miles per hour, and there hasn’t been a hole in the stream of traffic for about four minutes. Behind me is a line of fifteen or twenty angry drivers anxiously awaiting my next move. When I don’t move, because an opening in the traffic has not presented itself, the guy behind me decides that he’s not going to wait his turn and thus ratiionalizes that the sidewalk is a better route. He drives around me and up over the sidewalk on the right hand side. The whole time he’s doing this, his right hand is on the horn and his left hand is out the window with one finger extended (yes folks, the middle finger). In his rush to pass me, he forces his way between two unwilling cars, almost causing a wreck, and then he is forced to stop fifty feet later because the light has turned red.

This story seems unlikely, but not if you’re in Utah. This actually happened to me. The amazing part is that this is not the worst experience I’ve had while driving in Utah. I’ve lived here for about 12 years now. The people are great, but when they get behind the wheel, a transformation happens. They forget that they’re nice. They become ugly and evil.

The secret to this Jeckyl and Hyde transformation can be found in the design of the Utah car. When a car manufacturer knows that a car will be shipped to Utah after it’s completed, he will not install turn signals. “They don’t use ‘em in Utah” he would say. If an out-of-stater is driving through Utah and he uses his blinker, it confuses the natives. They’ve never seen one, so they don’t know what to do. They think it’s a signal for them to drive up on that (whichever blinker is used) side of the car and stay there. When the unsuspecting non-native speeds up to get over or slows down to get over, the Utahan is speeding up and slowing down at the same pace as the out-of-stater thus preventing a lane change. When a Utahan needs to change lanes, the rule is simple, “just follow the lines on the road and everyone will move out of your way.”

Another design flaw of cars destined for Utah is the built in blind spots. These are not the traditional blind spots that some cars have; these are spots in the car that actually make the driver go blind. One of the biggest blind spots in a Utah car is the windshield. Utah windshields create the illusion that the driver is the only one on the road. This explains the phenomena of lane changes without warning. This unusual, improperly designed Utah car also explains why Utah drivers do not drive in the lanes, and why they drive over the five-inch-high cement islands in the middle of the road, and why they don’t know where they’re going, and why they don’t know where they are.

I’ve found that humor is the only way to deal with the insanity of being surrounded by Utah drivers. I’ve dealt with aggressive drivers in some of the biggest cities in the world, but a Utah driver makes a Jersey cab driver look like a sissy. I don’t know the real reason Utah drivers are the way they are. Maybe it’s the cars. No matter what the reason, if you’re planning a trip to Utah, beware; the rules of the road do not apply to the natives.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 12:15 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.