When you live in the Great Lakes region each of your fellow Midwestern states has it’s own flavor and because of this you develop a certain sense of how driving goes in each state. For example, most drivers in Michigan are freakin’ idiots that a) don’t know how to use a turn signal, b) don’t know how the hi-beam/lo-beam switch works and c) thinks they are a NASCAR driver and that speed limits are just suggestions.
You also knew that speeding in Ohio was a bad idea because the highways were loaded with the Ohio State Highway Patrol cars and they weren’t just reading a book, they were pulling people over left and right. I have lived all over the country but I have gotten more tickets in Ohio than anywhere else. They also tended to have a shitty attitude.
As a rule I am careful about my speed in Ohio, compared with Michigan where they seem to have 3-4 state troopers to cover the entire state and the speed limit north of Flint is “however fast your vehicle will go”.
But last week we took a couple of days and went to the Toledo Zoo and then drove most of the length of I-75 through Cincinnati and into Kentucky. Did a few things down there and then came home. It has been a while since I have driven that stretch and last week it was like something out of Mad Max. I frequently was going over 80 and cars were passing me like crazy. No one seemed to be concerned about cops and I think I only saw one or two.
The truckers were the scary part. Weaving over the line, driving super slow, driving super fast, changing lines right in front of people. Often the worst offenders were trucks with a temporary magnetic placard on the side of a fairly new white truck. We were in my wife’s car instead of one of my vans so I couldn’t see into the cab but I would bet most/all of them were driven by some mystery meat foreigner. It isn’t that White truckers don’t do some of that but the sheer volume of it made the trip rather nerve wracking.
Keep in mind that I spend a ton of time on the road for my business although not much of it on highways, but as someone who learned to drive in Ohio and lived there a lot of years I am saying without qualification that at least I-75 in Ohio is a pretty sketchy road to travel compared to years prior. I am a reasonably “safe-aggressive” driver and even I was a little startled at how bad things are on the highways.
Gee, I wonder what has happened over the last few decades that might account for this?
Try driving in Commiefornia. Between the rag heads and the illegal beaners it can be sketchy at best.