The Driving Game

Some of you may remember a competition that would occur each day in suburbanland. The Guys called it The Driving Game. The rules were quite simple.

1. Pass as many cars as you possibly can
2. Do not get passed

In general, points were assigned singularly for each pass. Add a point when overtaking, deduct a point when overtaken. Occasionally, additional points could be made or lost due to extreme driving skill or lame-ity. The object of the game, of course, was to be in the black whenever you got to wherever you were going.

With just a little practice, and a little nerve, it was an easy game to win. City traffic was large and four-lane roads were common, so a skillful weave could rack up scores of points in little time. Of course, using the merging lane for a big pass was common, the mainline traffic would always yield. I had not played the Game in many years (I got a “couple” of speeding tickets back in those days). Then I experienced Life in the Tropics. Here, the Game is played by masters. Competition is fierce. Base scores are much lower.

Contestants – The TAXIMAN
Scourge of the roadways. Watch for the red of his license plate in your mirrors.

The MINIBUS DRIVER
Endangering up to 15 at a time.

The CITIZEN
Often times has a nice car. Do not expect it to remain that way.

The CONSULTANT
As many as 17 Mitsubishi horses propel this diesel powered foreign invader.

Course - Traffic volumes along the A1 Highway average six thousand vehicles per day just west of Montego Bay to three thousand vehicles per day at Negril. The road is two-lane and undulates both vertically and horizontally. The vegetation wants to take it back, but passing vehicles keep the bush contained to the edge of pavement. The playing surface, then, is roughly seven meters wide. Assuming a car is stopped at the edge of the slab for no apparent reason, this is still a two-lane road,... just two really narrow lanes.

Pavement markings and signage (locally, “road furniture”) are a joke. This is probably just as well. If no passing zones were marked, they would be ignored. Speed limits are rarely posted. They are usually set at 50 kph in town and 80 kph in the country. Where one stops and the other begins is anyone’s guess. General rule - go as fast as you can.

Hazards - The Pedestrian/Hitcher/Higgler. These folks are everywhere, constantly violating what we learned while earning Hiking Merit Badge; walk in a group against traffic with a reflective cloth tied around your ankle. The ‘tropical produce sales centers’ so closely abut the pavement that any mistake could give you a windscreen covered with ackee. On the bright side, there are plenty of beer shacks available for, er,… refueling.

The Bicyclist/Scooterboy. No regard for their own lives. If I were to ride here, I would need a large motocross machine with a really loud horn.... and kevlar duds. With machine guns, it could be just like David Carradine’s destructocycle in “Deathsport".

The Ice Man. I usually score a point or two passing the ice man in the morning. Electricity does not always make it to the (relative) boondocks. Blocks of ice are produced in the larger towns and transported to the various beer shacks and restaurants (food shacks) in a flatbed truck, unwrapped and covered with a tarp. Sometimes, the truck stops for a delivery. Sometimes it just slows while the labor leaps to the ground, delivers the ice chunk, and races to catch his coworkers. Will it come to a complete stop? Jah knows. Is it safe to pass? Jah knows that as well, but he is not talking.

The Taximan. Stops on a ten dollar coin. Has no brake lights.

The Minibus Driver. See Taximan. The problem with both of these is that the particularly aggressive ones will stop in front of you, drop off a fare while you pass, then pass you again on their way down the road. In this way, you can lose points to the same guy multiple times in the same round.

The Ever-changing Rules of Yielding. One iteration is this: if you are on the mainline, it is acceptable, and sometimes encouraged, to stop suddenly and back up traffic while someone enters the traffic stream from a sideroad or driveway.

Cattle. The adults are not so bad, but the calves are more skittish and random.

Goats/Pigs/Dogs. Hard to see. Are they feral, or will someone miss them if they do not come home?

Dumbasses. I mention the donkeys because this just happened on the drive home. It had rained in the afternoon, so the pavement was slicker than usual. A herd (pod?) of burros was crossing the road. The last one freaked and actually fell on his ass 15 meters in front of my rapidly decelerating Dogwagon.

“Dumbass”, I remarked.

And, of course, the largest hazards are the People Playing the Game in the Opposing Lanes.

Rules - Repeat after me, “What traffic cop?”.

Strategy – Know your power curve.
Use road hazards to your advantage.
Fear nothing.
Do not die.

The choice to play is not mine to make. If you do not play, you lose time and gain aggravation. I am in the game, regardless, every time I start the vehicle. To my benefit, attitudes formed by the sedate Iowa driving I used to do have rapidly been swept away, replaced by the offensive Chicagoland driving habits I thought I had lost. Soon, I will drive worse than a Jamaican.

GAME ON!

But remember, “The more you drive, the less intelligent you become” [Repo Man]. Read More......

Routine

This first collection is entitled "THE ROAD TO NEGRIL or Reptiles and Samurai, Sunshine and Lollipops". They were written from August 1999 through July 2002.

Oh, and just for the record, all contents of "Thorazine in your Farina" copyright by PalmerWorld, except as noted or where blatently obvious, like the Ramones lyrics in the preceeding post.

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Routine

It has been three weeks now, and the routines are starting to settle in. Up with the sun, then a breakfast of gruel, fresh fruit and Blue Mountain coffee on the patio as I watch the boats in the marina. Maybe read some. Off at seven or so for the commute to the office, forty five minutes on a crap road which is their “A1 Highway”.

The office is a couple of trailers salvaged from Guantanamo Bay by the Contractor. My space is a quarter of what it was in Des Moines, and the decor is atrocious, unless you like the bad paneling and mismatched furniture typical of a site office. My view is of the side of one of the dormitories set up in second hand cargo containers for most of the Koreans and Indians. The view out of the front doors is north to the sea, less than a kilometer distant and fifty meters below. The camp also houses the Contractor’s offices, shops, fabrication areas, stockpiles, and concrete plants.

If I do not pack a lunch, Bruce, our man Friday, will head to Lucea and pick up something. The curries are mild, the Jerk can be incredible. I may come to love the Ital, or Rasta-food. It is all Vegan and really, really tasty,... once you add salt.

I usually split around five for the trip back to Montego Bay. I have been assigned this small right-drive Mitsubishi 4x4 pick-up. It is a crew cab, so there are four doors and a very short bed. It is a 2.2 liter diesel five speed Dogwagon, which is a shame. All the roads are two lanes, and there is little visibility, so what in the States would be considered unsafe passing is common and necessary. More power would be appreciated, but is unavailable. As such, I have got to really beat on the thing. So what else is new?

Common road hazards include awful pavement, standing water, feral dogs, small groups of goats and lots of cattle, with and without their egrets. Pedestrians walk on the road. They are my biggest concern.

Well,... maybe the taxis are my biggest concern. Back when the island was flirting with Communism, there were imports of tens of thousands of Russian-built Lada’s. They are little four door econoboxes which are vaguely reminiscent of the old BMW 2002's, and are probably rip-offs of some old Fiat design, except that there are no working taillights on any of them. They stop with no notice in the middle of their lane to pick up and drop off fares. They race you to bridges. They pass you on curves. The minibus drivers are just as bad, maniacally driving through the country carrying twice the legal passenger load. These cabs and such are everywhere, perhaps as many of them as there are private cars.

There is a lot of honking, too. Honk to give way, honk to take way, honk to gain attention, honk to annoy, honk just for the sake of honking. I need a bigger horn.
Five or six days of this, and I am ready to hit the beaches. We have been to Negril a couple of times in the past three weeks. It is on the far western tip of the island and reported to be THE place for sunsets, although we have yet to see one there. To do so would require that we either stay the night or drive back in the dark, which we will not do (yet) for safety reasons (the road really needs to be replaced, we joke).

Negril has a beach twelve kilometers long of very fine white sand. The water is like a warm bath, sans Mr. Bubble. For a buck you can rent a chair and watch the flat blue waters do nothing. There is little tide here and the seas are almost always calm. Get some food at Cosmos or one of the other beach restaurants then have a couple of Red Stripes down the road at the Pickled Parrot and engage in some cliff diving.

Maybe cool off by the pool once we are back in town, then go out to eat.
We are in such a rut, but we will manage. Read More......