The Pittsburgh Left

Have you ever been at a traffic light and when the light turns green, the car opposite you quickly turns left across the intersection without an arrow while you are going straight? Apparently it is a common custom here in Pittsburgh. We kept seeing it happen, and every once in a while someone would comment about it. It is quirky enough that it made it into the book Traffic, 226):

The Pittsburgh Left is "that act of of driving practiced primarily in the Steel City (but also in Beijing) in which the change of a traffic light to green is an 'unofficial' signal for a left-turning driver to quickly bolt across the oncoming traffic."

It makes me think of what a hurry many of us tend to be in, rushing to here and there to get this and that done. Have you stopped to think about what it is that you are such a hurry to get to? I know you might have these commitments, but how many of them? And to what effect?

Maybe we have created this sense of urgency and hurry to keep from thinking those thoughts.