If you happen to be in Albuquerque any weeknight right after work, heading east on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and approaching the Broadway intersection to escape downtown, you might have a chance to experience it. Maybe you have experienced it. The experience seems peculiar to that intersection.

It might be because the Jackson-Wink mixed martial arts training complex sits across the street on the northeast corner, where a lot of aggression is manufactured and released, and perhaps some of that aggression seeps out when the facility door is opened and it wafts across the street, targeting specifically the drivers in the eastbound lane.

Maybe it is in part because the sun sits at just the right position in the western sky around 5 PM, blinding drivers in the left turn lane from seeing anything from 9 o’clock to 2 o’clock in front of them, because it does appear that something kills vision on that side of the intersection, especially in drivers in that lane.

Maybe there is a special suppression of traffic laws at that location in the evening that I and all of the rest of Albuquerque do not know about.

I wish I knew what it was that made it repeatedly happen day by day, but I don’t, and it is just plan perplexing.

But it seems to happen every weekday evening.

Traffic lights change, green turn arrows glow, drivers in the westbound turn lane are guided to empty into the two southbound lanes on Broadway, and every driver in that queue believes they deserve the right to make that turn.

Every driver.

Even if southbound Broadway traffic is not moving at all.

Even if the turn lane arrow has gone from green to red.

Even if by turning, their car will be in the intersection, behind another car, OR behind two cars that have also turned south and are in the intersection.

These unique drivers realize it is just fine to sit in the middle of the eastbound lanes, blocking a mass of cars from downtown that want nothing more than to get on through and on the freeway and on home, because, well, they have to have their very good reasons.

I suppose it could be that these drivers are all simply foreigners- from other countries, nonetheless- directed to the intersection by some alternative malevolent tourism department, perhaps overseen by HAVOC, which has been commissioned to sow confusion on streets across the city.

Perhaps these drivers are told that visiting this intersection is a rite of passage for becoming a true Albuquerque driver. “Have you ‘made the turn’ yet? Yes- it is a cray-cray rush!…”

Or maybe they are told it is an awesome mind-bending reality experience derived from some “Breaking Bad” episode. “Yes- you want to go down there, and AFTER the light turns yellow, turn into the intersection and just sit in the intersection and experience what it is like to block a car lot of vehicles wanting to get past you. You will find the angry yells and loud horn blasts enthralling!”

If you are an eastbound driver trying to get across the intersection, it is maddening as you wait three-quarters of the light to finally see the line of impeding vehicles clear, and then you can only inch two vehicle lengths forward before you are again stalled by changing signals.

Who knows what it is. You would think Albuquerque drivers would have awareness of the issues surrounding that particular turn lane. And the what a slow corridor Broadway is to the south. And spatial evaluative skills.

The east and west turn arrows green, the cue of southbound turning vehicles spill into the intersection, and the last two or three cars decide to rest in the middle of it. It’s a rule of nature at that particular latitude and longitude.

Did you not see what just happened with the cars in front of you? Don’t you know you are not supposed to just stop in the middle of the road blocking traffic? Is there something special on down Broadway I should be hustling to see that I am missing out on? There must be. Because you people feel excused to abuse the eastbound lanes.

Over and over.

—

It is my turn to enter the intersection, and as I move I also approach and face the long side of one of these carefree cars sitting idly in the intersection. I am quickly angry after watching this episode play out two other times while penned behind the intersection traffic lights, and within my closed cab I yell some choice words.

A small young lady holed up in her Ford Taurus before me wears dark oval-framed sunglasses and stares straight ahead. She cooly lifts a vaping device to her lips, takes in a long drag, and exhales a white cloud out of the side of her mouth, out of the open window to her left.

Horns honk. Drivers next to me gesture. My vision is suddenly blurred by a red filter.

The road in front of her clears a bit and she casually slides forward and brakes, still blocking half of my lane, as the clock counts down on this green light.

I want to join the Jackson-Wink gym immediately.

The light turns red before me. And… cars now approach my truck from my left.

I am now the idiot in the intersection, because I am blocked by Ms. Indifferent.

Some honks begin to my left. I make some vague shrugging, panic reactive gestures, being caught in this stupid position by no fault of my own. I was just trying to get to the other side myself, sir!

Inside my head, my second brain is asking, floating and watching from over my truck cab, “Really? Really?”

Ms. Indifferent finally clears the lane in front of me, but now I am blocked to proceed by northbound traffic that keeps me from escaping this terrible position. I look for breaks between the cars in front of me, to no avail. I raise my left shoulder, slightly shielding my eyes from sounds and events to my left, wondering how long it will take before my truck is rammed by a stifled malcontent.

I am baffled in this lawless sea.

And then the lights change again. The lane ahead of me briefly clears.

I squeal forward on through the intersection before I am crushed or pinned again by the new zombie cars boarding Broadway.

The light from the early sunset looks particularly rosy tonight. It is quite lovely.

Oh no, that is the quick twitch angst and anger that is still burning in my eyes, colouring my vision.

I made it across safely tonight. Will I be able to do it again tomorrow? I am not sure. But I am good for tonight, and I settle down and am grateful.

Making that crossing across Broadway each evening is truly a unique Albuquerque experience.