Road hazards

The patio of the North End restaurant affords a gorgeous view of an intersection I like to call the Bermuda Triangle of Basic Decency, among other unprintable appellations.

It’s a complicated place. Three streets feed North Washington going north, and two streets feed the expressway tunnels and surface roads going south. To get from the northbound lanes to the southbound ones requires a left on Valenti Way, then another left on Beverly. Six sets of traffic lights and a big grassy triangle are meant to keep order.

In other cities, this would be an intersection where drivers are extra cautious.

But this is Boston, where we slam our horns if the car in front of us doesn’t take off four-tenths of a second before the light changes and where blinking turn signals are semaphores for “I’m a chump, please speed up so I can’t possibly change lanes.’’ Civility? That’s for sissies.

And so at this North End intersection, red lights are not firm directives, but gentle suggestions. Cars glide out into congested crossroads long after their light turns red, stymieing those who have the green. They ignore the horns, shout back from inside their bubbles, talk earnestly into their handsets. When the lights change again, the blockees become blockers, certain their causes are just.

But, really, it’s the illegal U-turns that make this place special. The double-yellows that separate the two halves of North Washington Street aren’t mere road markings, but the setting for a daily ballet of illegal reversals. The laying on of horns and the shouting of cusses are its music and libretto.

I stood on a median by those lines between 4 and 5 on Monday afternoon, watching drivers make their crossings.

The U-turns came fast: a tan SUV at 4:14, a black Chevy at 4:16, a black SUV at 4:18.

At one point, two behemoths almost crashed trying to make the illegal turn at the same time. I asked a young man who drove his blue SUV into this near-miss why he had executed his spectacular transgression.

“Because I’m late,’’ he said, matter of factly, as if I were a pathetic fool.

He wasn’t stopped by anybody besides me, of course.

After coming through this place three times a day for a couple of years, I can assure you that hardly anybody ever is.

Drivers here seem to know this: Two police cars graced the intersection on a recent morning, but a man with a ZZ Top beard and a green truck sailed over the lines and on his merry way.

Earlier this month, I saw a woman in a BPD uniform and a little blue car do it, too.

This place brings out the philosopher in Thomas J. Tinlin, Boston’s transportation commissioner.

He sees it as reflecting a world where “we want instant access to anybody on the planet.’’

“It’s OK,’’ he said, sitting outside Tecce’s on a recent morning. “Relax. We’ll get there. We’re not as important as we think we are.’’

He also sees a chance to raise some revenue: A few red light cameras here would bring in a nice chunk of change for the city and make everybody safer.

Tinlin was just expressing his frustration that the Legislature hasn’t made that very smart idea a reality when a giant white truck caught his eye.

“That truck just blew through that red light,’’ he said. “Just to get to the next red light, 35 yards away.

“That’s not OK,’’ he said. “Why do they think that is OK?’’

Because it’s Boston, commissioner, where drivers don’t know better. Or they do, and they just don’t care.

Yvonne Abraham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at Abraham@globe.com.