stand all the fuss about licenses and tests and traffic
regulations. Watching it on television, it wasn't anything like being
in the middle of it!

Of course, what I ran into there was really nothing; I found that out
when I got into the city itself. But just at first, it seemed pretty
bad. And I still don't understand it. These people are pretty bright
mechanically. You'd think anybody who could _build_ an automobile--let
alone an atom bomb--could _drive_ one easily enough. Especially with a
lifetime to learn in. Maybe they just like to live dangerously....

It was a good thing, though, that I'd already started watching out for
what the other drivers were doing when I hit my first red light. That
was something I'd overlooked entirely, watching street scenes on the
screen, and I guess they'd never noticed either. They must have taken
it for granted, the way I did, that people stopped their cars out of
courtesy from time to time to let the others go by. As it was, I
stopped because the others did, and just happened to notice that they
began again when the light changed to green. It's really a very good
system; I don't see why they don't have them at all the intersections.

* * * * *

From the first light, it was eight miles into the center of Colorado
Springs. A sign on the road said so, and I was irrationally pleased
when the speedometer on the car confirmed it. Proud, I suppose, that
these natives from my own birth-place were such good gadgeteers. The
road was better after that, too, and the cars didn't dart in and out
off the sidestreets the way they had before. There was more traffic on
the highway, but most of them behaved fairly intelligently. Until we
got into town, that is. After that, it was everybody-for-himself, but
by then I was prepared for it.

I found a place to park the car near a drugstore. That was the first
thing I was supposed to do. Find a drugstore, where there would likely
be a telephone directory, and go in and look up the address of a hock
shop. I had a little trouble parking the car in the space they had
marked off, but I could see from the way the others were stationed
that you were supposed to get in between the white lines, with the
front of the car next to the post on the sidewalk. I didn't know what
the post was for, until I got out and read what it said, and then I
didn't know what to do, because I didn't _have_ any money. Not yet.
And I didn't dare get