NJ vs. FL: Round 9

 

You all already know how I feel about drivers in Florida.  But, would you believe it if I told you that there was a recent study conducted that the worst state of drivers in the United States is New York, followed by New Jersey as the number two state.  Florida is somewhere in the 30’s.  I’m extremely interested in talking to all 500,000 people surveyed.  It’s bullshit.

Not only are the drivers in Florida the absolute worst, but their road concept is beyond.  What does that mean? I’ll elaborate:  In New Jersey, major highway exits are designated by numbers mostly – though of course, the town/street name is also present.  For example, on the Garden State Parkway, you’ll tell someone to “Get off at Exit 135” – which we all know is Clark. (Well, we know it by memory of always driving up and down the Parkway more or less)  It just MAKES SENSE to count down to the exit number you need.  “Hey, starting my trip at Exit 160, going down to Monmouth at Exit 105 – 55 exits should take me a little more than an hour.”

(This doesn’t apply for SMALL highways like Route 208.  Here, there are simply road names.  “Go on 208 and get off at Grandview Avenue, after the big church that has an uplifting new sign every Friday.”)

Now let’s move down to Florida, where NOTHING makes sense to me.  Here, the major highways are the Turnpike and I95.  I know nothing about the turnpike  here, so I’ll stick to what I know – I95.  Every single day I commute from my home in Palm Beach Gardens to my place of work in Fort Lauderdale.  That’s exit 77 to exit 27.  It’s a basic fact that all exists here are roughly one mile apart.  That said, I know that it should, without traffic, take me roughly one hour to get to work (50 miles, 1 mile per exit). Using that deduction, wouldn’t it make sense for ALL OF FLORIDA to use the number system as we do in New Jersey?  Yes.  But do they do that here? No. 

Every time someone tries to tell me about where they’ve been or where they’re going or where I should go and what exit to get off at, they’ll use the NAME OF THE EXIT. 

“Get off at Sunrise”

“Ok, well where the fuck is Sunrise? What exit number?”

“I don’t know what exit number, just look for Sunrise.” 

“Right, but if I’m leaving my house at exit 77 and Sunrise is in the 50’s, I’ll know it’s about 20 minutes – if it’s in the teens, I’ll know I have a longer commute…”

Like HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW WHAT THE EXIT NUMBER IS, ESPECIALLY GIVEN THAT EXITS ARE ONE MILE APART?? Doesn’t it make sense to calculate the length of your route based on exit numbers?  I’m supposed to memorize every fucking exit NAME?  Are you out of your fucking mind? I don’t even remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday.

It’s just beyond me that on a major highway like I95, Floridians go by exit names rather than numbers.  Are you all grasping what I’m saying here?

Thank Heaven for my Navigation Nancy!