Just got home from a road trip to Denver and back. Never thought I’d say anything like this, but after driving in the traffic around the Denver metro area I hope I’ll never complain about Madison traffic ever again.

Not that I think Madison drivers are great. They’re not. They’re pretty piss-poor drivers by any objective test. But compared to Denver drivers, Madison drivers are relatively kind, almost considerate, conscientious to a point — again, COMPARED TO DENVER DRIVERS, who are not only contemptuous of traffic rules but are also casually inconsiderate in the most extreme way, like a person waving a loaded gun around as if it could not possibly discharge accidentally.

Like for instance, Madison drivers don’t know how to merge with highway traffic. They come up the on-ramp, sometimes with their blinker going, sometimes not, and gradually slow down until there’s a gap in traffic just big enough to jerk their car into, but not quite big enough that the next three cars in line behind won’t have to slam on their brakes.

But in Denver the roles are reversed: The cars on the highway are going about 50 MPH even though the posted limit is 65 MPH, while cars come blasting out of the on-ramps into traffic at 75 MPH. Somehow this does not result in massive pile-ups of tangled wreckage everywhere, but I don’t know how.

There is one way that Denver drivers are like Madison drivers: There are lots of people driving pickup trucks so comically large they can’t turn the corners of most city streets without stopping, backing up, going forward, stopping, backing up, and finally finishing the turn. There are also plenty of people driving tiny Hondas or Fiats or whatever those little Beetle-looking cars are, whining down the road as if they’re powered by motorcycle engines.