Yesterday, I blogged about the little acts of civil disobedience that entertain me. Rude, aggressive driving is not one of those acts.
Fortunately, more often than not, I find Milwaukee drivers generally courteous, and with few exceptions, free of road rage (though, at any speed, I'm a victim of tailgating on the Hoan Bridge more often than not).
In the last 24 hours, I experienced two instances of kind drivers, and both set the table for a good mood that lasted well beyond their momentary gestures.
Last night, I sat in neutral, trying to turn left out of our office on North Avenue. That can be a tricky egress, especially as people head home from work. With traffic rushing in both directions, eventually a driver stopped and gave the obligatory "go ahead" wave.
This morning, I encountered the morning rush hour challenge from Bay View, when traffic from both directions is trying to squeeze onto the I-794 North entrance on Oklahoma Avenue. If you live down there, you know what I'm talking about: with arrows and green lights aplenty, people are merging all over the place, frequently using the shoulder as a lane and eventually making an illegal turn onto the Lake Park Freeway.
This morning, a guy in a Honda Prelude saw me trying to make the merge, and he slowed down to let me in. When he pulled next to me 100 yards up the road, he looked at me and gave me a friendly salute, while I nodded back and mouthed a sincere "thank you."
I know this isn't a groundbreaking blog, but I find polite, relaxed drivers really cool. Having lived and driven in a few cities -- I got my license in Providence, R.I. -- there is a difference. East Coast drivers will even admit that they're generally aggressive and risky. Chicago drivers are fast and careless. Wisconsin drivers, to their detriment, are slow and conservative.
But they're usually polite.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
