And I thought Utah drivers were bad!

Driving in New York has been a whole different world, especially driving in the city! Here are some of the lessons that I learned rather quickly in order to stay alive.
1. Be aggressive. If you aren't aggressive then you won't get anywhere. Especially in the city! If you want to ever make a right hand turn you are going to have to inch your way into the masses of people until they finally stop crossing in front of you. Oh, and you better believe that there will be people honking at you because they are missing their green light!
2. Red lights and stop signs are optional. Don't even try to make a left hand turn after the light had turned red because there will be at least 4 cars running the red light that would crash right into you. This is also important to remember so you don't get stuck in the middle of the intersection! Also if you get pulled over it may not be because you just ran that stop sign, which leads me to the next one.
3. Don't talk or text while driving. The cop will pull you over because you are talking on the phone but not because you just ran the stop sign. I know you are all thinking that this happened to me but luckily I learned this one from another driver out here. (and NO it wasn't Scott either!) So if you are want to talk on the phone and drive in NY then it must be HANDS FREE.
4. What seems like a one lane road is really 2. You are expected to drive fast with no wiggle room between you and the next car or the barricade. This place is not for the claustrophobic!
5. If your foot isn't on the gas when the light turns green then someone will honk at you. I mean there can't even be a one second delay! So better yet, have your foot on the gas before the light turns green. Puerto Rican Sneaks are also to be expected. If someone is waiting to turn left and the light turns green, they will floor it and turn in front of you/oncoming traffic.
6. If you leave more that half a car length space between you and the car in front of you, you will get cut off!
7. When exiting or entering the freeways on Long Island, be prepared to slam on your breaks or floor it! The off ramps, on ramps, and any ramp is usually too short and very curvy.
8. Not only is it going to cost you an arm and a leg to park in the city, you might have to give up your remaining arm and leg to get there. We have paid anywhere from $20-$45 to park for 4-8 hours. And depending on where we were going and the way our GPS took us we've had to pay an additional $20 in tolls just to go over a bridge or in a tunnel to get there!
9. If the cars in front of you are moving into the next lane, you better follow suit. I was driving out of the city when several cars got into the other lane. A little prompting told me to do the same. So I quickly got over and was glad I did because in front of me was the biggest/deepest pot hole I had ever seen! Seriously our whole Yaris could have fit in it. There was no warning or lane closure because there is no side of the road to put a sign. So all someone had done was put one of the small little cones in the middle of it, thinking that that would be enough warning! We would have been toast if I hadn't gotten over in time.
10. Even with a GPS you will have to make a few U-turns. For example, there are islands and traffic that the GPS doesn't realize are there; and you won't be able to cut across three lanes of traffic just after getting off the freeway to the Applebees you want to eat at.

I don't know that we will ever be able to actually complain about driving in Utah again. At least not if we put it into perspective of the other places we have driven.