1. Wherever you are, people think the drivers there are worse than other places."

I have lived in an RV and traveled full-time for six of the past seven years. I've driven a bus-sized house through more cities than most folks have visited. I feel like I could write a (very boring) book about traffic. I agree that everyone complains about traffic, and everyone does say the same tired old line about the weather changing. But, there are differences in the character of drivers and traffic in various cities.

I will agree with you about Orlando (and Florida, in general); those are some shitty drivers, too. But, Atlanta really takes the cake. I was on the road for seven months in the RV before going to visit my folks for the first time (the first time in the RV, not the first time ever). I got cut off more, and had more people ignore my turn signals, in the hour it took me to drive across Atlanta than I had in the entire seven months prior in dozens of other cities, including Los Angeles (which has surprisingly polite drivers, given its reputation). I really don't get road ragey...except in Atlanta.

I have driven in both Boston and New Jersey. While they are crowded and the drivers (particularly cabs and buses) can be somewhat aggressive, and there are some ridiculous behaviors you wouldn't see in most other places (double-parking delivery trucks, honking and even yelling a lot more than you see in most places) I wouldn't categorize them in the same league of hatefulness as Atlanta drivers. Driving in Atlanta felt downright dangerous because of how aggressive drivers are.

We had done a 9 day trip across the US and Canada, through mud, ice, through a nasty storm, down mountains with hot brakes and transmission, but no part of that more stressful than the merges in Atlanta.

I also happen to live here, and what you say about aggression (I wouldn't call it hateful) is pretty accurate. Not only do people typically ignore signals, some will close gaps _because_ of your signal. As a result, way too many people (police included) never signal. It's lord of the flies.

I've driven in Manhattan before and it's not that bad. Nobody will let you in but nobody will actively try to prevent you from merging either. You have room or you don't, figure it out. Driving in south Jersey is like driving in a maze of cars who are actively trying to prevent you from changing lanes or getting where you want to go. Between the Crown Vic going 10 under the limit or the WRX going 110, it's a wonder anything lives past the first six months driving in the Cherry Hill area. Orlando was the same way but the places I was in it just wasn't crowded enough to be that much an issue.

They drive hard, but there's a very clear & consistent code/system everyone abides by, drivers are attentive and bewilderingly polite: signal, and—more often than not—someone immediately makes room for you. Makes for stress-free, predictable driving despite being 20 over at all times.

… or maybe that's the norm, but I'm from Seattle where drivers are timid, indecisive, unpredictable, and passive-aggressive.

That can't possibly have been a common occurrence in LA... Our weather changes about half a dozen times a year.

Seattle has a few months of near-uninterrupted sunshine and a few months of near-uninterrupted drizzle, but the intervening months interpolate by changing the weight of their random switches between the two.

Also, I don't know anyone in the South Bay (SF is different) who thinks the weather changes more frequently than other places. Here the joke is "Walk outside. It's sunny. It'll be sunny from April until November."

There have also been more shootings on the road in Houston than anywhere else I've lived. So, yeah, that seems scary, but it's not something I worried about when I lived there. In the instances where someone got shot that I know of, the person was kinda asking for it (they initiated violence and the person they were beating on happened to have a gun under the seat or in the glove box).

I've NEVER lived anywhere anyone has made that joke, ironically or otherwise. That may have to do with the fact that the last 2 places I've lived (Portland, OR and Phoenix, AZ) have very long stretches of monotonous weather. But 2 certainly doesn't seem nearly as true as 1.

I spent the first 24 years of my life in south Jersey and never perceived the drivers as particularly rude, especially compared to Boston ... can I ask where specifically?

I think there is a cultural bias at work here somewhat, too. Wherever you learned to drive seems normal, even if it is way different than other places.

I think this is why Orlando and Atlanta are perceived as the wild west of driving; very few people are FROM there. Everyone brings their driving norms from wherever they learned, and they don't often mix well.

That whole region, in general, has nicer people than their reputation would indicate, in my experience. New Yorkers and New Jerseyans (is that the right word?) were all pretty nice and helpful. I spent a month parked in Ridgewood, NJ (it was the closest I could park the RV to NYC for that long), and was struck by how friendly folks were across the whole area, given the reputation for rudeness. Riding the train was fun, asking for directions was rarely problematic, etc. Driving the house around sucked, but the people were fine.

When I was younger my friends and I would drive way more aggressively whenever we saw out of state plates. We thought it would be funny if they went home with horror stories.