It’s no secret that Rhode Island’s roads hate your car – specifically, your shocks, tires, and axles. But did you know that those roads hate you – specifically, your sanity, happiness, and will to live – too? It’s true! Potholes are abundant and elephant-sized, especially now, when the freeze/thaw cycle is really hitting its stride, but add to that the absence of street signs or any of the usual tools people use to find their way from point A to point B, and you have a level of craziness unique to the Ocean State.
It’s not unusual to complain about the roads where you live. Everyone tends to think that where they live has the nuttiest drivers, the crappiest roads, etc. But I have lived and driven in Chicago, New York, Washington, DC, Jersey City, and Los Angeles, and in those cities I witnessed some drivers’ habits and road conditions that could charitably be described as cuckoo bananas. And yet they do not compare to driving in Rhode Island. Not even a little.
Forget the fact that drivers in this tiny state are the most aggressive I’ve ever seen, Manhattan cabbies included. The thing that makes Rhode Island really stand out is that the details of road travel, the kind you normally take for granted, are none of your business. Street signs? Forget it. If you don’t already know the name of the street you’re on, you shouldn’t be there. Protected left turn? No, there’s no green arrow light; if you don’t already know it’s a protected left, you will when every car behind you starts laying on their horns, because you should have known it already. Stop sign? It may not be real, so you may not have to pay attention to it. Other traffic signs, like “No Parking” or “No Turn on Red?” If they haven’t been there your whole life, they don’t count.
I work in an area downtown called the Jewelry District, because once upon a time jewelry manufacturing was the dominant business here. I believe that when our forefathers planned the roads in the Jewelry District, they took a handful of wet noodles, dropped them on a piece of paper, and drew up the plans according to how the noodles fell. In the Jewelry District, not only is the existence of street signs sporadic, but so too is the appearance of numbers on buildings. I was late for the interview for my current job because the building’s address isn’t marked anywhere. I even gave myself an extra half hour to get there because I had tried to find another address in the area a few days earlier, and after driving around for an hour I gave up and went home, weeping. Not a day goes by that I don’t see someone driving around the Jewelry District, slow and confused, looking for an address that is none of their business.
You have to rely heavily on landmarks to give someone directions. Much of the time, addresses are meaningless, even outside of the Jewelry District. The people of Rhode Island are generally here for much longer than any business, so directions often include things that do not exist anymore. You or I might tell someone, “Take 95 to exit 14, go straight at the end of the ramp, take your third right onto Jefferson, and then the house is #18, a blue ranch.” A true Rhode Islander would say, “Take 95 to the exit before the mall, and then just go and go, and then when you get to where the Apex used to be, start looking for a Dunkin’ Donuts on the right, not the left, and after you go by that and the gas station, turn right where the uniform store was. It’s a blue house, kind of like the one your uncle Jimmy lived in when he lived in Cranston. Remember? The kind with the door in the middle? Like that, but blue.”
Thank god for GPS.
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