Date:         Wed, 7 May 2008 17:01:00 -0700
Reply-To:     Don Hanson <dhanson@GORGE.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Don Hanson <dhanson@GORGE.NET>
Subject:      Re: Bend, vanagons, etc.
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"

Scott writes:

They have this thing about Traffic Circles too - now you encounter them
every now and then, on the west side of town ........their idea of 'euro
traffic safety' or something.

  You know, my almost Westie without a poptop 84 is really great to  drive
round traffic circles.   You are sitting high enough to see past the parked
cars and all the little cars.  You are  level with lots of SUVs so you can
see around them, too.
   I don't know what it is about 'Murikans, though, and traffic circles..or
'round-a-bouts' or Zocolos (sp?) as they are variously called in the rest of
the world.  Everywhere else, drivers take them in stride.Elsewhere,  they
are great enhancers of smooth-flowing traffic, but in the US..the drivers
see one and they get all flustered.   They just panic and stop, or stop
rather than merge.   Or drive around the whole deal to make a left turn, but
they poke along on the outer ring, blocking everyone who wants to come in
and forcing others to wait behind them or to make a dumb lane change to pass
the flustered drivers.
    And, when driving  a two lane highways,  many US drivers suck, too.
Especially for us Vanagon drivers without Subaru motors..The normal US
driver must be so used to freeway and interstate driving that a two lane,
where they actually have to pass using the oncoming traffic lane, that
sometimes causes all kinds of anxiety in many drivers.   They will often
follow a slow vehicle for miles and miles, ignoring many many opportunities
to pass and finally screw up enough courage to go around...usually at a less
than safe spot.  All the while, you sit behind in your Vanagon, knowing for
sure that passing multiple vehicles at one shot in a Vanagon is dependent on
a BIG break in the oncoming traffic flow or a downhill that happens to
coincide with a clear oncoming traffic lane..

 lists of 'Ten Coolest cities in the US' in
magazines like Outside

  And that is the 'kiss of death' for a place, being written up in the
magazines.

 Bozeman, Montana got that treatment, too, recently,  and now it's chock
full of "Pata-Gonads" and re-located urban would-be refugees...except
Bozeman is now no longer small town since they all moved in there..  Few
vanagons in Montana..

  Don Hanson