America is, on paper, one of the easiest countries in the world to own and operate a motor vehicle. Virtually all of our infrastructure is tilted toward car ownership, and so are regulations, too. And yet.
Now, for my money, the worst part of driving in America is quite easy, in that it is the police, though that is in large part because I grew up in the state of Ohio, where cops take great pleasure in pulling over motorists for the tiniest of infractions. You don’t have to take my word for it, though; here is a study from Insurify that identified Ohio as being the heaviest enforcer of traffic laws among states in the entire country.
It’s not just Ohio, though. There is Virginia, too, for example, where you can be sent to jail for speeding, and then there is Iowa, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Colorado, and Idaho, which are the other states in Insurify’s top ten.
It is not, of course, that enforcing traffic laws is bad, it is that traffic stops involving police officers are. In Europe, for example, they use speed cameras to enforce speed limits on highways, not some bored officer with a radar gun on the side of the highway.
In any case, the police are just the beginning, as there is plenty more to be annoyed about when driving in this great country. Honking, for example. What’s up with that? There is the small, polite honk when you’re sitting behind someone at a red light and they clearly aren’t paying attention and the light has turned green and you want to get moving. That honk is fine! So are honks intended to alert pedestrians and drivers to immediate danger, but pretty much every other honk is not fine, perhaps especially the prolonged honks from drivers sitting in traffic. Also, it is possible I am overexposed to this problem living in New York City.
What’s the worst thing about driving in America for you?