I always assume that everyone on the road is a raging alcoholic so I never trust them to do the right thing on the road.
Having worked in San Francisco’s South of Market area for a couple of decades has ingrained the habit of looking both ways as I’ve seen plenty of people going the wrong way on the area’s many one-way streets.
Aside from that, assuming everyone else is an idiot that learned to drive by watching Dukes of Hazzard reruns has saved my skin and bumpers many times.
I check every damn time. Fear of death is not a bad thing.
As my parents said “the graveyard is full of folks who had the right of way”
I was T boned at an intersection that had no traffic lights , a teenage boy who only been driving 2 weeks totaled my car ! He was 100% at fault . My city was trying to get the state to put up traffic lights b/c there were 3-4 accidents
per day . There were 2 or 3 more after mine then the state had light put in and now people run the red lights ! I always look both ways when I have a green light and I check twice after that stupid kid nearly killed me . I was knocked out cold and was told my car bounce off a guardrail and almost hit a third car.
I was told my accident was horrible to see too and one guy who was my witness was so impress with my driving wrote he would be proud to have me drive one of his truck . I can’t recall what I did b/c of had concussion .
I assume worse. I assume they are texting.
Or, “A harp is pretty, but it’s hard to play.” --Soupy Sales
Yep, first thru I definitely look. Big worry when I’m on my bike, though
I’ve never had a close call. It’s one of those scenarios you just picture.
Hope your had gets better. {~;D
Oh, and I’ve been hit a couple of times while commuting on my bike. I’ve told my kids that I’m obviously invisible because they’re looking out for cars, not bikes.
But after reading this thread, I’m not sure anyone’s looking out for anything…
Good for you. Keeo on keeping on. In my city it was probably my fatber. He was killed at the age of eighty-five, on his motorcycle, when a guy in a truck took his eyes off of the road to put in a CD. This was September of 2014, a Friday afternoon.
His name wasn’t released to the press until Monday, but the news items said “85 year old motorcycle driver killed” and his friends told us they knew it could be nobody else.
Interesting that everyone is saying they see people run red lights.
I think I see maybe one person a year (if that much, probably less)? I wonder if this is a geographical or rural/urban divide?
Also, definitions matter. I see people go through a yellow light that turns red as they are in the middle of the intersection, but I do not consider that running a red light.
Also, there is generally a long pause when both lights are red. So for someone to run a red and then T-bone someone who had a green light, the red light runner was not just “a little late,” they had to be really far back when it turned red and kept approaching the intersection.
I would have no room to talk.
I once drove to the bottom of a hill, signaled, and made a left turn in an interseeoesction. On a red light! If a cop had seen me and ticketed me I would have had no defense-- I just wasn’t thinking.
I did, however, once see someone stopped for a red light suddenly pull into the intersection and collide with a vehicle crossing legally. I told the cop who showed up what I saw-- and said the same thing to the offending driver’s insurance agent when he phoned me.
Sometimes people’s minds are elsewhere.
yes I do…
San Diegan here, and I see it often. A few days ago, my light turned green, and one…two…three (count 'em - 3!) cars sped right across my path, ignoring their red light. It was one of the creepiest damn things I’ve ever seen. Gave me the willies for the next hour of driving. If I’d gone forward – legally and properly – not only would I have been t-boned, but the next two cars would have jammed up into the existing wreckage. Pile-driver city!
By the way, driving in Tijuana is different. There, it is absolutely normal for two cars to go through a freshly-turned red light. That’s just what drivers do there. You get used to it.
That’s a good quote.
(I always look.)
That’s perfectly legal here. The red light cameras don’t even trigger if you do this.
Mostly the ones I see are far back when the light is yellow, and they are not about to slow down even if it turns red when they are still 50 feet away.
I don’t what what racial/urban thing you mean - I’m right in the middle of Silicon Valley.
In a car, I tend to glance a bit to either side but not reliably or carefully and I don’t pause.
On my bike, absolutely.
Here’s a jingle I once heard:
Here lies the body of godd John Jay
He died defending the right of way
He was right, dead right, as he sped along
But he’s just as dead as if he were wrong.
That appeared in an edition of a Drivers Ed textbook published by the Auto Club.