Blocking the Box

I haven't ranted on this blog in a while, so I figure I'm due. That and the yelling and screaming to myself in the car is getting really stressful. I'm hoping that someone in City Hall has a Google alert set up, and I'm going to use every phrase I can think of that THE CITY OF BOSTON might have used in said Google alert so they somehow come across this post.

I've been riding my bike to work 2-3 days a week since April, which has reduced my car-driving stress considerably. But, last week, after getting home from vacation, I was lazy and drove every day. And then it commenced raining like hell for 3 days straight. So, I drove through the city for 8 work days in a row, something I've not done since last winter.

Keep in mind, folks, that it is still technically summer in Boston. There are some students dribbling back this week, but there are still no school buses or little kids on the streets. Traffic is still "light".

Boston drivers are notoriously shitty. Shitty in their skills, shitty to each other, shitty on reaction time, and they make shitty decisions. This actually applies to most Massachusetts drivers. A friend and I were driving to Maine, and when you cross the border from Mass into New Hampshire, there's a sign that says "Drive Courteously. It's the NH Way" on the side of the highway. We decided it was just for the Massholes crossing over as a warning to stop driving the way they usually do and remember they are now visitors in someone else's home.

I learned to drive here in MA, drove mostly in my small hometown and then headed to college and didn't drive at all for 4 years. Then I went off and became a Maryland driver and a California driver and a Pennsylvania driver before returning to Boston. And I am still a Boston driver at heart. I'm fast and aggressive, and I can look in 12 directions at once if necessary. I can bob and weave with the best of them. If you don't have these kinds of skills, you are probably that idiot stopped at the Storrow Drive entrance ramp waiting for an opening. It ain't coming, honey, let's go. Stick your nose out.

Boston drivers are also notorious law-breakers. As a matter of course, they run red lights, take rights on red even when the sign says they can't, change lanes without signaling, travel in the far left-lane with no intention of moving, and cut people off as often as possible. They also flick each other off, yell out the window, call each other names, honk a lot, and tailgate. We would win the gold every time if tailgating was an Olympic sport.

Mayor Menino should be held responsible for the horrible light system in Boston. There aren't any weekend settings, so you sit at lights downtown on Saturdays for three cycles while the invisible, non-existent pedestrians do their crossing. There are badly set lights in Boston and all the surrounding communities so only 3 cars can get through a whole busy clusterf*ck. A friend of a friend who moved to Boston from NYC once said he was going to run for Mayor of Boston just so he could change the effed-up light systems. He went back to NYC.

But this entire rant is about one thing. One. BLOCKING THE BOX. Don't know what that is? You're probably a Bostonian.

Blocking the Box is when someone pulls forward into an intersection but is stuck in traffic and can't move forward through the intersection, so when the opposing traffic gets their light, that someone is still sitting in the middle of the intersection. They are blocking the "box" made by the intersection and now nobody can move across. This is bad for so many reasons. SO MANY; here's three:

1. It's freakin' unsafe. Now an emergency vehicle cannot get through. People are dying in those ambulances, you know.
2. It's freakin' annoying. I have been waiting patiently for about 3 light-cycles already, and now that I'm the third car back, I still can't get through the damn intersection because you are SITTING IN IT. Like a moron.
3. All the people behind me are piling up into the intersection behind them. And there are probably morons just like you blocking the box back there. And the cycle continues.

In NYC, there are signs everywhere that say DON'T BLOCK THE BOX. In Guiliani's time, they probably pulled you straight from your car and hauled you off to jail if you did it. Now they just give you a big whopping ticket. Facts are, people don't do it. Certainly not taxis, which are some of the worst offenders in Boston. New Yorkers know they have to behave on the streets in order for life to keep on keeping on. Why the hell don't Bostonians know that? (And don't even tell me that NYC's streets are straight and easier and so that's why they don't have to do it and we have to do it here to get anywhere. Bullshit.)

In Boston, police officers often just watch this happen and do nothing. NOTHING. The stupid Boston Police Department has officers on the street standing around WATCHING this happen. Pull these f*cknuts over and ticket them. It's a pretty easy concept.

This happens in snowstorms. That's super fun. You know, the roads are already horrible, and everyone's moving at a snail's pace, so let's inch out into the intersection and then just play chicken to see who can force their way through instead of actually allowing the light to do its job. That'll be fun. Maybe we'll slide a bit and hit each other! We can sit in the dark and the snow well past 7 p.m. and into having to pee and being super hungry to add to our frustration and our asshole-ness! Woot. Fun times.

The two most offending intersections I come across regularly for this are the intersection of The Fenway and Brookline Ave (especially during Sox games) and The Riverway and Longwood Ave. The Fenway and Brookline Ave is a virtual corridor to the hospitals and this is very dangerous. Yesterday, I was the SECOND car back when the light turned green for me to cross Brookline and only the FIRST CAR got across. I couldn't go. When people take a left onto Longwood from The Riverway heading east, there is another light right away which is timed badly (BROOKLINE CITY HALL, get on that). So people pull that left anyway, knowing everyone is stopped and then they block anyone who is travelling west's ability to go forward when the light turns green. It's a real mess, considering The Riverway can get backed up all the way back to the Landmark Center.

Boston needs to do something about this. Boston needs to do something about a lot of things, I know. This is likely very low on the list. But the CITY OF BOSTON and MAYOR MENINO should know how completely and totally annoying it is. And the BOSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT should probably at least tell the cops that if they see egregious instances of this, they should do something about it. Instead of say, standing on the corner chatting to each other. (Possibly reword to eliminate the word egregious, lest they don't know what that means. Snark.)

I'm going to wear my horn out long before I stop driving this car. I just know it. In the meantime, I'm back on the bike.