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[shevek]

I have been reading the California Drivers' Manual. It is the California equivalent of the Highway Code, and it scares the living daylights out of me. It is available for free on the internet. It is hard to condense the horror to one or two gems, so I offer the following extended list

Comments

[quercus]

I once lived in the US for 3 months, and (as legally required) I went looking for a car. As a contractor I didn't get a company hire car, so I had to find my own. Not wanting to pay for a hire car (I always drive shitheaps, no reason to change), I looked for something second-hand.

It seems that all Americans drive new cars (on vast payment schemes) or else the trailertrash drive junkers. There is nothing in between. All newish cars are deported after two years to Canada to get some rust holes etched into them, then shipped South (by sea) to Mexico, to have them hammered to death and patched up badly, before being shipped back into the USA where they can now be sold as "previously loved".

So if it's new, it's a badly engineered piece of shiny junk with no functional brakes from the factory and a handbrake whose only function is to latch the cupholders in place. If it's no longer shiny, it's a death trap with brakes only installed on one side, using pads meant for a Brazilian Beetle. Both of these cars require flag signals and a ship's pilot to make them stop.

[x_mass]

your legally required to own a car?? I had heard about guns but cars???

[quercus]

I did try walking to work (just under a mile), but kept getting pulled by the cops! Then they'd do that "Oh, you're English" thing where they'd look sympathetically at the straw-chewing halfwit, and wish me on my way off to my next cup of tea and a muffin.

In Boston or Chicago I had a fine time with no need of a car, but in Cincinnati it was your only means of escape.