YESTERDAY AFTERNOON I almost died. As I drove down Western Avenue in Cambridge, a car on my right attempted a left-hand turn into a side street. I slammed on my brakes, skidded, spun around, and smashed into several parked cars. Somehow, I ended up unscathed. Unscathed and unsurprised. In fact, I’m amazed it didn’t happen sooner.

Now, dissing Boston drivers is cheap and overdone. Throwing around stories about that schmuck who ran the light this morning, or that butt-head who drove in the breakdown lane, is an easy way to get off a good sneer. Everyone fancies him- or herself a critic of Massholes behind the wheel. But that’s all too easy. I’d like to believe that Massachusetts drivers are trickier than that — more savvy, decisive, and purposeful in their messiness than we give them credit for.

Basically, tooling around the roads irresponsibly is an efficient way to drive newcomers crazy — and out of town. Bostonians know what this city has to offer. With its sophisticated-culinary-scene boom, historic sites up the wazoo, and a robust academic climate, what’s to keep interlopers like myself from taking over, infiltrating and diluting the pool of authentic, pure-blooded New Englanders? Nothing. That is, unless locals do the one thing people like me can’t stand: drive like idiots.

Nutty driving is wonderfully effective for methodically repelling interlopers, because they either a) become so frustrated that they leave or b) remain so clueless that they never pick up on the rules of the road and end up skidding into parked cars (read: me), and maybe even dying. Beautiful. Either way, gone.

Think of it as a litmus test, a form of natural selection, the Massachusetts: Love It or Leave It School of Driving. Learn to drive our way and you get to stay. Don’t like the way we drive? Leave. Don’t want to leave? We’ll kill you.

It’s elegantly simple in theory, but most impressive when pulled off en masse. And Boston has truly distinguished itself in this respect — where every other city has failed.

TAKE SAN Francisco. Last summer in the Bay Area, a spate of car accidents left several pedestrians mauled and lifeless. It all seemed so fitting. Blame it on the (formerly) booming economy. What do you get when you bring in droves of newly rich people who value speed — high-speed Internet access, back-to-back speedy PowerPoint presentations — and old-school diehards holding fast to the anti-car ethos? A clash of cultures and personalities that plays itself out on the roadways and results in casualties.

San Francisco is Boston gone wrong — them taking charge, the newcomers, asserting their authority through acceleration. Fittingly, Boston has adopted the opposite strategy: slow, steady, and baffling. And it’s working, at least on me.

You can usually divine people’s personalities from their driving styles. Slipping behind the wheel brings out one’s true colors: selfishness, generosity, ditziness, blood lust. I’m not just talking about Defensive vs. Aggressive driving styles. There are also Those Fearful of Parallel Parking, Zippy Lane Changers, Nonchalant Accelerators, Pathological Double Parkers, and yes, those who champion the Across-Traffic Turn.

We can apply this analysis to my experience. Watching the blue car casually and swiftly swerve into my lane at a 45-degree angle, the obvious conclusion would be that the driver was a) selfish, b) an idiot, or maybe even c) a tempter of fate. But that would be selling that driver short. You see, the Across-Traffic Turn is artful in its brashness and nonchalance. And yes, in the way it gives expression to latent urges to injure seriously. Similar to the Fast/Slow Pullout — in which driver impulsively swings into traffic right ahead of car and slows down to a leisurely 10 mph on the open road — the move is most maddening. And gloriously dangerous. But it also gets the job done, sending the message “Hey, you! You can wait for me [impish giggle].”

These moves appear effortless, stunningly simple, because they’re all variations on two basic, easy rules. Rule number one: take your sweet time. This principle underlies everyone’s favorite tactic: Nonchalant Acceleration, or slowing down to a near stop as you approach a green light. While NA comes off as excessively cautious, or even dramatically defensive, it’s really one of the best ways to fend off upstart movers and shakers. Keep them in line. Ho-hum your way through that intersection.

Rule number two: assert your claim on space. Want to make a left turn even though you’re in the right lane? Don’t bother looking; just do it. Need to take a moment to check something out? There’s really no need to pull over, or even to put on those things some people like to refer to as “hazard lights.” Just stop, and do what you need to do. Chat, chill, whatever.

Of course, there is the off chance that Boston drivers’ technique is not so contrived — that the ruin on the roadways is caused more by aw-shucks cluelessness than malice. But I prefer to see it as the shining brilliance it seems to be, a studied and successful strategy with rules and objectives.

As I was plowing into a line of parked cars yesterday, the message came through loud and clear: I’d flunked out of the Love It or Leave It School of Driving. Perhaps it’s time to invest in a T pass.

From now on, Nina Willdorf can be found on the Green Line or at nwilldorf[a]phx.com.

Issue Date: May 10-17, 2001