Driving in Pittsburgh

So I was driving through Pittsburgh today, and while stopped at a red light, I wrote:

Pittsburgh: “Even our pedestrians drive like assholes.”

Because they do.

Now, I currently live in a small town, but I’ve driven in Boston, New York, New Jersey, California, and Atlanta.

I have never in my life seen as many people pull the “I’m stepping out into the road, and I’m gonna glance down and see where you are, and oh you’re far enough away you’ll probably stop before running me over, so now I’m going to saunter my lazy ass across the street like I’m a finalist in the Slowest Turtle Competition.”

That bullshit would get your ass run over in Boston.

Pittsburghers, please know that I really love your city, but your traffic patterns are more confused than trying to learn Chinese arithmetic from Ozzy Osbourne.

“Hey, this lane is now Right Turn only!”

“Hey, it’s not Left Turn only!”

“Hey, you need to go straight, but straight is a 98° turn, and we decided to make the road narrower on the curve.”

“This road is wide enough for 3 cars, so we decided to allow for parking on both sides of the street. What’s that? No, it’s not one-way! It is, however, cobblestone and has more bumps than a measles colony.”

“This street is 2 lanes in each direction— SURPRISE! — after this traffic light we allow parking in the outside lanes. I KNOW! ISN’T IT GREAT?!?”

“Oh, and one last thing: we only hire bus drivers who have no peripheral vision and who are incapable of turning their necks to check for oncoming traffic. Just didn’t want to throw you any curve balls.”

Anyway, I posted the above message to Twitter, and not even 30 seconds later, my phone rang, a number I didn’t recognize but it was a 412 area code (Pittsburgh, for those who don’t know).

Now, you have to understand that my phone hooks to my GPS, which is great except that I had all of the windows down, and I knew that if I was trying to talk through the GPS speakerphone, whoever was calling would have no way to hear me.

So I have to unlock my iPhone and tell it to not use the GPS speakerphone while I’m trying to roll up my windows and turn on the A/C (it is hot as Thor’s balls today).

Finally I answered the phone:

Me: “Hello?”

Voice: “Our pedestrians do not drive like assholes!”

I was like, “Holy fuck, someone from the city is monitoring Twitter for people defaming the city?!”

May I remind you it has been like 45 seconds since I posted the message, but I had also sent Jason my cell phone number so we could try to meet up, and he had apparently gotten my DM and seen the message at the same time.

Meanwhile the light has turned green, but I haven’t noticed because, well, see above, and the guy behind me starts blowing his horn.

I’m going to take a nap now.