Transportation
The Universal Language of Crappy Driving
From the California stop to the Pittsburgh left, questionable choices behind the wheel are less local than the names we give them—except when they aren’t.
Have you ever pulled a California stop? What about a Boston stop, or a Rhode Island roll? They all mean the same thing: a not-quite-complete halt at a stop sign.
In fact, a surprising number of places have pinned their own name on this maneuver, and others like it. When researching a column for the Boston Globe, linguist and writer Ben Zimmer was surprised by how many of the terms referred to the same transgressions.