The word Yield never found much place in my vocabulary until recently. And since then it has been written all over in my head. Any guesses to what this is all about? Well, we recently bought a car. The lazy woman that I am, I never bothered to get my US driving license until now. And mind you, if you laugh or smirk I will defend myself to the core. Why do I need a license if I do not have anything to drive around? Yeah I know it's all about being prepared and all that. My roommate Jenny used to tell me it is good to have it as an identity proof when you are travelling around. Well, I have my passport, I would reply. Why would you move around with your passport? Would you not like to keep it at some safe place? she would insist. I would retort back with a why would anyone steal my passport? And since it is my passport I am going to be extra careful carrying it around. Of course, she would give it up knowing it was no use cracking a nut which was already crack.
Back to topic, I have had an Indian driving license for almost 10 years now and have driven around quite a lot while in Delhi. And just to keep the perspective, I love driving. So driving or being comfortable with the vehicle was not a matter at all. What was the matter, was driving in US after driving in India. It's a complete shift in perspective. The first couple of times I drove, I committed blasphemous mistakes. I still remember I drove right across the intersection into the wrong side of the road (on the other side of yellow line) and expressed innocent confusion on why vehicles from the opposite side were coming right onto us. Thankfully, my friend's shocked expression quickly communicated the mistake and its seriousness and I understood just in time. Incidentally, I wasn't caught. Similarly, I took a couple of free left turns.
The concept of Yield is something I was completely new to after driving in Delhi for two reasons. One, there is no traffic rule that mandates that you have to yield. The signals take complete care of it (that is if you are following the signals which is a completely different question altogether). Two, if you try to yield in Delhi traffic, you will never get to your destination. The dynamics are very different there. So the message you learn is "NEVER YIELD". Being aggressive in fact, is essential for survival in Delhi. (If you subscribe to Gandhian school of thought, you could argue here, agreed.) So, it was a complete turnaround here. 
My early US traffic experience began as a pedestrian and I was pretty humbled by the Tehzeeb and Izzat shown to the pedestrians (at least in NC, although I have seen the New York city traffic to be pretty similar to Delhi traffic). Here, if you mere pedestrian, happen to be in the middle of the road and a car is speeding towards you at 45 miles per hour, you have no reason to panic. Just hold your head high and keep crossing the road (bindaas hokar cross karne ka, kya?). The car would come to a screeching halt just to let you cross. And the driver would not complain. If you just step out of your house and see a car parked 20 meters away from you in the middle of the road close to your house, you need to hurry a little because the car driver is waiting for you to cross. He does not mind waiting at all. He has all the respect and patience for you. He will cross only after you cross. Initially when this used to happen with me, I often stopped confused as to let the car go. And then the driver would either just keep waiting till I understood or indicate through some gesture and then I would hurry only ending up wasting the time. It took me a while to grasp the equation, status(Pedestrian) > status(Motor vehicle).
And so back to car driving in US. I found it difficult to break my old habit of aggressive (read oppurtunistic) driving to a humble toned down one. And initially I almost never yielded while turning left. It was never deliberate. In fact, it was very natural for me to do that. The first time I did that, I did not get any hang of why, when I had a green signal, traffic was still coming from the opposite direction. Slowly, I programmed my mind with two messages - "YIELD" and "WHEN CONFUSED BE ON THE RIGHT". These two messages helped me uncode my older habits of not yielding and being left-aligned on roads. Sadly the YIELD message has been over-learnt. Now, when I am on a signal planning to go straight across the intersection (having the Right of way), I stop to YIELD for turning traffic. I keep waiting after my signal has turned green and then after a patient wait, either on hearing a honk from the back or seeing the vehicle in front of me NOT turning for long enough, realize my mistake and move straight on. Guess it would be a little time before I can unlearn the over-learnt. I also chuckle at the thought of how I would find driving back in India after driving for a while in US. So much for traffic and all that.Update
Just yesterday. I am driving back from Downtown to my univ area. Like generally is the case, the streets in Downtown are one way. So once I am on the street that goes straight into my univ, I set the cruise button of my mind to KEEP MOVING STRAIGHT, and let it indulge in the more important trivia of life. After about a mile of driving, suddenly an oncoming car emerges out of nowhere. It is only then that my almost absent mind sends flashing brain signals WRONG SIDE WRONG SIDE!!! (ONE WAY became a TWO WAY once out of downtown). I immediately shift to the right and completely ignore the expression on the driver's face.
