Unfortunately, that does not make you a great driver in Atlanta, a strange place with its own nonsensical set of rules.
Here are some tips for driving around Atlanta:
1) Avoid left lanes. On most roads in the Emory area, there are no left hand turn lanes. That means that if you driving in the left lane, the chances of you getting stuck behind someone trying to turn left is very high. This is especially true at stoplights. Your instincts will tell you to be in the left hand lane, because there will be so many fewer cars in that lane! Do not be fooled. There are fewer cars in that lane for a reason--approximately 1.5 cars will make it through per green light.
2) GPS is your friend. There are a lot of roads in Atlanta that have verrrryyy small street signs, or potentially, no sign at all. This is true even for major roads. (It is also one of Natalie's pet peeves, so don't bring it up around her unless you really want to talk about this problem and how ridiculous it is that Atlanta cannot bother to purchase street signs for at least five minutes.) So it is best to have a GPS of some kind, or to ask someone for landmarks to keep an eye out for.
3) The whole "every street is called Peachtree" thing is not a joke. According to Wikipedia, there are 71 streets with Peachtree in the name. There are also many Briarcliffs, Ponce de Leons, etc. So know whether you are trying to get to a Street, a Drive, an Avenue, etc.
4) If you miss a turn, turn around on that same street if possible. It is not advisable to try to figure out an alternate route. The streets in Atlanta mostly intersect at diagonal angles. Taking 3 lefts will NOT get you back to where you started.
5) Beware of lanes turning into left-hand/right-hand only lanes with very little notice. You can help avoid this fate by staying in middle lanes whenever possible, but it's likely that at some point in your time in Atlanta that you will find yourself suddenly forced to turn when you didn't want to. Just know it is not your fault and calmly turn on your signal and wait to get out of that lane.
If you follow these tips, it should hopefully make driving in Atlanta a pain-free experience for you!
