The Jersey Slide

“Whoa! When did you become a Jersey driver?”

I hadn’t seen much of my brother Jeff since I’d moved to New Jersey and his remark caught me off guard.

“What are you talking about?” Okay, so maybe I did roll through a stop sign with only the slightest pretense of braking but in my defense, I replied, “I stopped like thirty yards back.”

“Sure.” he said, “but you didn’t stop when you got to the stop sign. You coasted right through it on the bumper of the car in front of you, which coincidentally, didn’t come to a stop when it was his turn either.”

“Look. It’s a stop sign. I stopped. End of discussion.” I shrugged and added, “Besides, if you stop at a stop sign in New Jersey you’ll get rear-ended by the guy behind you.”

“That’s a bunch of baaaahloney.”

To prove my point, I came to a complete stop at the next stop sign and we immediately heard the chirp of rubber on pavement as the car behind us stopped an inch short of my bumper and laid on the horn.

I wasn’t always a Jersey driver. When I was a kid growing up in Illinois, I was awed by the remarkable synchronicity of a Midwestern four-way stop sign. There was this one intersection in particular – 55th and Main – that ran with the polished precision of a Beyoncé dance number. I’d sit in the back seat of my old man’s Buick and marvel as thousands of cars approached, stopped and proceeded with remarkable efficiency; eight lanes of human harmony, as if one collective consciousness were controlling the entire movement.

There was comfort in knowing that mankind had worked out its differences, at least at this one little intersection. I believed that if people could work together so well at 55th and Main, there might be hope for humanity and the world might learn to live in peace.

Then I moved to New Jersey.

When you stop at a stop sign in New Jersey, it pisses off the other drivers who aren’t shy about letting you know how they feel. Try it, and seriously tattooed people with shaved heads and week-old beards will honk violently – and that’s just the women. When a man stops at a stop sign, other men question his testosterone levels and shout terrible things about his mother. Little old ladies on the other hand, don’t yell or honk – they give the Jersey Salute. It’s amazing how straight they can make their arthritic middle fingers.

It took me a while to get used to the famous New Jersey traffic maneuver known as the “Jersey Slide”. This is a last second, right hand turn from the far-left lane, performed in heavy traffic on a multi-lane highway at sixty miles per hour. To qualify as a Jersey Slide, drivers must pass through a minimum of three lanes, but extra credit is awarded for four lane slides (the Grand Slide) or five lane slides (the Ultra Slide). Lest you think this is a simple maneuver, the procedure must be initiated when you’re less than three seconds from the exit.

This one guy became a New Jersey legend when he pulled off a six lane Jersey Slide on the Driscoll Bridge on a Jersey Shore getaway weekend! Seriously, this dude is more famous than the Jersey Devil or Lucy the Elephant and he earned New Jersey’s highest honor. No, not the Governor’s Citation, that’s for saps. He landed a guest appearance on The Sopranos.

It took years for me to fully transform into a Jersey driver, but it comes naturally to those born here. When I was teaching my son how to drive, I told him to stop tailgating and he replied, “Don’t tell me how to drive when I’m texting!”

Speaking of tailgating, I know there’s something inherently dangerous and sociopathic about riding three feet behind a car at seventy miles an hour because the people in front of me have said so. But I would like to point out that the traffic signs clearly state, Slower Traffic Keep Right. Some people settle in the left lane and drive, are you ready for this … the speed limit!

It’s like this; New Jersey drivers don’t pump their own gas and they don’t stop for nobody. The reason is simple. People from New Jersey don’t like to be told what to do. They think of traffic signs, not so much as rules, but as suggestions.

Think about stopping here.

Yield if you feel like it.

Give or take sixty-five miles an hour.

Remember New Jersey is the state where the Republican governor’s office didn’t like a Democratic mayor, so to piss him off they shut down the roads leading to the George Washington Bridge. That’s right; in a political retribution tantrum, they shut down access from Ft. Lee to New York City – for five days – without warning – and someone died! On the bright side, people from the governor’s office went to jail where they rekindled old friendships with their co-workers. Are you starting to get it? Jersey drivers learn about belligerence from the top.

Oh, and another thing.

When you visit New Jersey, don’t tell a Jersey driver how to get where they’re going. Midwesterners understand words like north, south, east and west but they have absolutely no meaning on the east coast. You might as well be speaking the King’s English or some other foreign language. It’s easy to understand why, if you compare a Midwestern road map to a New Jersey road map:

              

Illinois Road Map              New Jersey Road Map

New Jersey roads were built over old Indian trails. As a result, our roads don’t go north, south, east or west but they will take you to the best hunting grounds for beaver pelt. Many of these Indian trails lead to Paramus, which is an old Mohican word meaning shopping mall.

When you ask a New Jerseyan for directions, you’ll get something like, “Whaddaya mean north? Yous go down to the Dairy Queen and hang a Louie. Go to the traffic circle, say a Hail Mary, and take the third exit on the right which is how yous turn left. Bear right at the deer carcass and badda-boom, badda-bing, you’re there.”

That’s right; New Jersey still has these ancient relics known as traffic circles that predate the Indian trails. Some believe the circles were left by early aliens as a way of thinning out our species. Not convinced? Take a look at the cluster of traffic signs at these circles. They’re so complex they could only have been conceived by Daleks or Klingons.

When I first moved to New Jersey I used to think like my brother. I argued with my wife much like Jeff argued with me twenty years later. I tried to explain to Caroline that she may have stopped thirty yards before the stop sign, but she didn’t actually stop at the stop sign. She looked at me like I was suddenly speaking the King’s English.

“Look. It’s a stop sign. I stopped. End of discussion.”

Therein lies the paradoxical rational that makes the Garden State so unique. Midwesterners like my brother simply don’t “get” New Jersey. You mess with the governor you get Bridgegate. You stop at a stop sign you get the finger. It makes perfect sense to those who live here.