Of all of the unique things about living in Pittsburgh, one of the most useful and distinguishing is how friendly and courteous people are. They say that in Pittsburgh there are no strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet.
While it’s still true that when you meet people face to face, a conversation and even friendship is sure to take place. You can no longer take for granted the “Pittsburgh left”
What is a Pittsburgh left? Simply put, it is giving the right of way to someone turning left. Imagine you are pulling up to a red light on a two way street and are going to turn left. The opposing traffic is very long. When the light turns green, you have to wait for the traffic to clear before going. Unfortunately you might have to wait for several light cycles before you get to go holding up all of the traffic behind you.
With the Pittsburgh left, the first car in line going left at the intersection will be allowed to go first, so that you only wait for one light cycle and you don’t hold up traffic as long on your side.
The car going straight yields the right of way to the one turning left.
Is this law? Absolutely not. But it was the custom here.
Of all of the things that the pandemic changed in our society, the Pittsburgh left is the one that I miss the most.
It was a large symbol of thinking of others that was lost due to the change in our feelings of community and togetherness. Of course, the divisiveness over politics didn’t help.
Somewhere along the line our society went from “we” to “me”. Everyone is so busy now looking for the differences among us, that we forgot the sameness that we all share.
We might be a Republican, or Democrat, Vaxxer or Anti-vaxxer, but underneath it all aren’t we all Pittsburghers?
As Yinzers, isn’t it time for us to resurrect the Pittsburgh Left?