“Shared Center Lane - Shared center lanes are reserved for making left turns and can be used by vehicles traveling in either direction. Marked on the pavement, left turn arrows for traffic in one direction alternate with left turn arrows for traffic approaching from the opposing direction. These lanes are marked on each side by solid yellow and dashed yellow lines. In Arkansas it is permissible for a vehicle making a left turn from an intersecting street or driveway to utilize a center left turn lane as part of the maneuver to gain access or merge into traffic lanes, except that it is not permissible to use the center left turn lane as an acceleration lane.”
So it appears you are correct. However, in keeping with the spirit of the OP’s request to share instances of “rules” that they don’t teach you in driver’s ed, this is certainly one that stands out in my mind as one that was never taught to me in 1984 when I took driver’s ed. I therefore followed the clearly marked signs along the side of the road stating it was for left turning only and the big-ass white left-pointing arrows with the word ONLY underneath them painted in the center of the lanes about every mile as the defined rule to be followed.
I will continue to follow my interpretation even against what is stated in my state’s manual as I personally believe that to do otherwise is an act of jackassery.
If you have to reverse while pulling a trailer, put your hands on the bottom of your steering wheel. Then you can turn your hands in the direction you want to go. It reverses things for you (e.g. you push your hands to the right but the wheel goes to the left) and makes it much easier to figure out.
They don’t actually cause the stop-and-go by merging early. They stop-and-go is caused by people running all the way up to the last yard of pavement and then forcing their way in, causing all the properly-merged folks to have to brake.
The overall backup itself is caused by traffic density and cannot be alleviated by any particular strategy except (in the long term) birth control.
The perception that a proper, early merge causes backups is self-serving, thus appealing to a lot of drivers.
Yes, taught. I’ll go so far to say that this bahaviour is ingrained. When I test-drove a car in the US, the sales guy was freaking out about it - and my brother nearly failed his test in the US for the same reason.
Yes, if you’re stopped for more than about 5 seconds, you put the handbrake on.
Your regular brakes are all four wheels. The handbrake is the back two. But if you are whacked from behind by another vehicle, your body will move all over the place and your foot will almost always depart from the brake pedal, thus leaving the car to roll.
Most of us use manual cars, so yes, neutral, foot off the clutch, is the default state when stationary. In an automatic, the situation may be somewhat different.
And it’s too dark and shadowed in Google Maps to see the lane markings. Pity. I’d like to see it; I’ve nsever seen a triple left tiurn lane, as far as I remember.
The triple left turn only signs are above the street, not on the lanes. I’m able to see them clearly in street view - now you’ve got me wondering what you’re looking at.
That definitely falls under the “don’t be a jerk” category; if you can make a right turn on red, you should. I’m not sure why you’d want to sit and wait (and block others) longer than you have to.
I don’t have a hard cite, but the short story is that a guy and a girl I know were driving through the southern interior of BC one hot summer day near Cache Creek. That area is very dry and can get very hot in summer.
She threw her cigarette out the window and it landed in a box of papers in the box of their pickup. They only noticed when the driver looked into his rear view mirror and noticed 3-foot flames coming from the box and threatening to ignite everything else in the box of the truck.
In a panic, he stopped the truck and jumped into the back of the pickup and threw the flaming box overboard, only to have it roll into a ditch full of tall, dry grass. The whole ditch caught on fire and a wall of flame quickly swept up a hillside. My understanding is that half the town leaped into action to fight this massive grass fire that threatened to move into the town. It took a few hours to get it under control, all while the girl sat on the side of the road, head in hands, in tears.
There actually is an effective resolution of the “early merge, late merge” conflict (which has long been thought irresolvable): the cooperative merge. I’ve seen it a few times and I’d like to think it will catch on.
It involves signs that say “Use both lanes to merge point.” Then, near the merge point, signs say “Cooperative merge: one vehicle from each lane, in turn.” People seem to catch on fairly quickly, and IME it works with little strain.
If you encounter one of these, the trick is to be in the lane with the most trucks: As trucks are longer than cars, this lane will move a bit more quickly.
The car goes forwards, but the force of the impact pushing YOU back into the seat. This of very rapid acceleration in an airplane - you are pushed into your seat. Now imagine this times a hundred. Your entire body will be forced backwards, including your feet from the pedals.
