driving in Jerusalem

In order to understand the driving situation in Israel, you must be aware of two things: the Israeli psyche and the physical conditions of the roads. We shall start with the former.

Israelis by nature are not patient. I believe their impatience stems from all the dairy products they consume (hard to digest), but others claim it is because of the ever-present hostile political situation. In any case, Israelis' mental conditions seem to be exaggerated on the road. It is just short of a law that you must honk at the driver in front of you as the light turns green, in case he hasn't noticed and is not revving his engine, ready to take off across the intersection. If for some reason the car in front of you swerves even the slightest bit, say half of a fraction of a centimeter (they use the metric system here), you have every right to speed up and yell through the window that he is a "son-of-a- whore," the Arabic equivalent to our "on-of-a-bitch." (Israelis only swear in Arabic. Apparently our sacred Biblical language is devoid of useful curse words.) Sometimes, when faced with a passing lane too narrow to squeeze through, people will drive their vehicles over the sidewalk, in order to gain the extra car length that maneuver provides. But when they are on the roads, at least they are the right side.

The best part, though, is the roads themselves. Jerusalem was built a long time ago (no shit, you say), before they had tractors and college students working construction in the summer, and as a result the roads are narrow and windy. Just about every other residential block is one-way, so the fastest way from point A to point B doesn't at all resemble a straight line, unless you squint really hard. I have seen exactly one road in all of Jerusalem that has lane dividers painted on the ground. That is not to say that drivers actually observe the divider. (They don't.) And on non-marked streets the merging is even better. Cars will drive sort of straight-ish until they can just barely fit past the car next to them without sitting on the driver's lap. I swear I've been able to count the nose hairs on (in?) passengers of cars next to me on the road. And I have not seen a single turn indicator since I got here. The last issue is the street names. They change about every three blocks. My uncle informed me that it is a result of Israel being such a small country and having so many people to honor. Rather than dedicating a special day of rememberance to honor the dead (ie, department store sales), they set aside an hour everyday so they have enough time to give directions.