A TALE

Three cars arrived simultaneously at the roundabout. Three roads led into the circular roundabout. Three yield signs punctuated each street’s run into the roundabout.

Each car pulled to a halt. Each driver obeyed the sign, yielding to the other drivers. Each waited, believing the others would go.

No one moved.

Had each driver arrived at stop signs, at a traditional intersection, they may have better understood the decorum of who should go first, next, and so on.

But this was a roundabout and none of the drivers were familiar enough with a roundabout to know the proper etiquette for such a situation.

These were also the hazy commands of a yield sign. A stop sign’s orders are unmistakable: Stop. A yield sign not so much. With a yield sign, you can go if nothing is coming, but you should stop if something is coming. With each driver arriving at the roundabout at the same time, each driver chose to follow the yield sign’s suggestion and stop for the other cars.

Of course, if all three cars stop simultaneously, then really there is no reason to yield. If the other cars are stopped, then someone is free to go. But with all three cars yielding, who was free to go? And who should remain yielding?

Apparently, each of the three drivers believed one of the other two drivers was the one with the right of way. Each driver sat waving another driver forward. Each driver waved that sideway wave that drivers use to direct other drivers.

A driver’s sideway wave is not a greeting but a somewhat less vague order than a yield sign for another driver to go before the waving driver goes. In driver sign language, the sideway wave means: “Please, after you, I insist.”

If all drivers are performing the sideway wave, the sideway wave usually escalates in intensity, increasing from the flourish of one hand’s fingers to the horizontal urgings of the entire hand and forearm. The more intense sideway wave often means: “Would you go already, you idiot.”

Often, the increase in one driver’s sideway wave intensifies the stubbornness of the other driver, who then refuses to move because he no longer feels that the sideway wave is an invitation to go, but an order to move. A driver may have to obey the hazy command of a yield sign and the other more definite rules of the road, but a driver does not have to obey the urgent flappings of another motorist’s arm. Backseat drivers are bad enough, but to be bossed around by someone in another car, for many drivers is intolerable.

So each car sat unmoving at the roundabout. Each driver madly flapped one arm at the other drivers. Each sideway wave becoming more frantic. Each driver refused to yield by no longer yielding.

Until each one became exasperated, and each one decided it was time to move forward. Each one decided this simultaneously so that each car rolled forward and skidded to a rocking halt at the same time. This inspired another session of one-armed sideway waving from each driver, but no one moved.

They eyed one another like three desperadoes preparing for a shootout in an old Clint Eastwood Western. Their hands gripped the steering wheels. Their feet hovered above the accelerators. Each one’s eyes moved to the driver to the right then the driver to the left. Eyeing each other so closely, one driver raised one finger. And not the finger you may think. He raised his index finger which the other two drivers recognized as the universal count of the number one. The driver to his left raised two fingers. The third driver raised three fingers.