American Musings

- Rental car has XM satellite radio. This is amazing, as there are millions of channels to chose from. I have had it on a dance music station called BPM. The rental is a tiny Kia, but it pumps out some mean sounds!
- My rentals have been small, but the average US car is HUGE!!! You see so many pick-ups that are obviously not used as commercial vehicles, often with double bogie wheels at the back, with HUGE engines just burbling along
- Fuel is around US$3.20 per gallon, which equates to about A$0.85 per litre.
- Most of the traffic lights in Miami were horizontal, not the conventional vertical arrangement - why?
- Rather than have closed malls like we do (a la Westfield), they have a load of discrete shops placed around a HUGE open air carpark, often acres & acres in size. So wasteful of space, and you have to drive through the enormous carpark from shop to shop. A nightmare in the rain (as I found out today). But they are never busy. They do occasionally have closed malls, but they are a rarity (and have valet parking!).
- Fuel pumps can be a trap for the inexperienced. As well as lifting the nozzle from the pump, you also have to flip up the hook that the nozzle was on. And you have to pay in advance. If you are used to the Australian way, you just lift the nozzle, put it in the car, then wait for the pump to start. Here, you could be waiting a long while for that to happen!
- NSW police are very strict on policing the speed limit. Here, 15mph over the limit is not a problem. I was cruising at 65mph in a 55mph zone on the interstate, with most traffic still overtaking me. And then a state trooper cruised past us all!
- On the faster sections of the interstates, there is a max and minimum speed limit. I like that
- American cars do not have yellow turn indicators at the rear. They use a flashing red light to indicate, and this is often the brake light. I think it is very hard to distinguish initially if they are indicating, or just tapping their brakes
- Their speed limit signs are also crap. They blend in to the background with all the other signage, whereas the international standard signs used in Aus are much easier to distinguish
- Internet is very cheap here. Almost everywhere has free wi-fi, especially the hotels

I know there is more, I just can't remember it right now. And my typing hands are getting a little sore.