Southern hospitality stops right around Richmond, VA

Just a quick general rant... oberservations I've formed over time...

I swear, I have said it previously, but each time I take a road trip down 95, or down I-85 I'm proven more and more right.

Driving down I-95, once you get past Richmond is a virtual dream, compared to driving along I-95/I-495 once you get past Richmond, VA, and up near DC. From that point on, I swear they must perform some sort of lobotomy by satellite based lasers or some such on the drivers that are on the road.

Things are a bit more crowded than the over 20-years ago when I was commuting back and forth down to Fort Bragg for some "Haaaaaarmy Training, Sir!" but the friendliness of the drivers has remained near the same.

Generally people in the south pass on the left, then move back to the right lane, unless they are generally running faster than anything else on the road.

Get up to the Richmond area, and the closer you get to D.C., and then much worse, the closer you get to NYC or Boston areas the worse it gets. People forget about courtesy, park themselves in the left lane and never leave it, and generally behave like idiots behind the wheels. I wish we could take all of the north-eastern area drivers and ship them out to California, or down to the south for a while. Such bad manners and bad behavior, and the saddest part is that many of the same people are found driving along (as tourists) in the southern areas behaving as pretty as you please.

Maybe it's something in the water, maybe it's those space based laser weapons that people need tin-foil hats to protect themselves against, but it's something. It's always something.
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Reply #1 Top
Being from Texas, my recent trip to D.C. was somewhat of a culture shock on how people are. A homeless guy on the street told me F*ck you when I wouldn't give him my change. I just smiled and said, dude I've heard that before ! (Heh, I DO work in a jail, ya know!)

Generally, the people that worked in the restaraunts etc. were on the rude side. Something I'm not use to here, even in bigger cities like Dallas and Houston and Oklahoma city north of me.

I dunno, guess that's why they call 'em damn yankees...
Reply #2 Top

Maybe it's something in the water, maybe it's those space based laser weapons that people need tin-foil hats to protect themselves against, but it's something. It's always something.

Nope!  It is the northerners moving down!  Just came back from C'ville this afternoon.  ANd traffic was fine.  Except for one ass  hole who ran up my tail pipe on his truck!  License plates?  NJ

We in Richmond are trying to push those jerks north, but then they dont care much do they?

Reply #3 Top
Southern Hospitality doesn't die 'around' Richmond, it dies IN Richmond.

I know Dr G is a native here, and as such has some home-town loyalty going on, but as an outsider (i've only been here for 9 months now) who has lived in some *real* southern states (georgia and florida) and traveled extensively throughout the south when I was a truck driver, I'm here to tell you that Richmond SUCKS.

It sucks so bad, in fact, that it sucks brain cells right out of normal people from the north AND south as they drive through the area, its not done by satellite based lasers!

My favorite traffic happening around here is called "Lets all come to a screeching halt for 30 minutes for no apparent reason."

You'll be tooling along, making at least some progress, when all of a sudden you find yourself jammed up in a huge clusterfuck, stopped dead and then creeping along bumper to bumper for half an hour or so.

And then, just as mysteriously as it began, traffic starts to move again...and there's no discernable reason as to why it stopped to begin with, no accident, construction, or road hazard in sight. Pleh.

And if there is 'something to see', even something as mundane as some poor slob changing a tire on the side of the road, the traffic-jam would have taken 90 minutes or more to clear. I swear, I've seen these slow downs for less than that....

Best to avoid the area entirely, if possible.


I got news for you LW....that traffic thing? That is not only in Richmond. I've seen that in ALL sections of this country. From San Diego to Pittsburgh to New York city. Stupidity is "every where"! And if you talk to *most* real southerners they do not consider Florida a southern state.