Driving, Austin-Style

Austin must be the stop-sign-running capital of the world. I don't know why everyone here is in such a hurry. It's worse than the D.C. area, where I lived for almost 40 years. I can understand why all those people in the D.C. area run stop signs (and traffic lights) with abandon -- they're in a hurry to do something "important" for the nation. But Austin is the mere capital of one State (granted, it's a big State and it still has a lot of oil), and an Austinite, by definition, can't be more important than a denizen of the D.C. area.

Maybe Austinites are propelled by the refried beans that come with Austin's ubiquitous Tex-Mex food. (I will say that Austin's version of Mexican food is about 1000-percent better than the D.C. version.) Whatever it is, Austinites have this truly annoying habit of zooming through stop signs and around corners to plant themselves in your lane of traffic. Once there, most of them slow to a crawl and start talking on their cell phones.

Oh well, I'm retired and I have all the time in the world. Don't mind me -- just don't hit me.