If you have ever missed the exit, pulled onto the shoulder, then backed up to the exit, your are one of those People Who Should Not Drive. Ever.
Are you going to be late? TOO BAD! Next time you pass that way you will remember where the exit is. Even if it takes you WAY out of your way, NEVER BACK UP ON A HIGHWAY.
Is it worth killing yourself and others? I hope not.
I had a near miss this morning because an idiot was backing up to get the exit.
Seriously, if you have EVER done this stupid act, sell your car. I’m not kidding, you have a screw loose.
Heh, I’ve never seen this done until about 2 months ago when someone backed up in the divider thing between the 2 seperating road ways (on the highway).
What’s worse, because that small area is designed as a crash zone for cars that don’t pick a path, there wasn’t enough space for this guy to merge. Before he left my line of sight he was hopelessly stuck in the middle waiting for a break in traffic moving at 100 km/h.
I’m just glad this sort of thing is rather rare around here. We only get the normal stupid drivers.
Thankfully this sort of aggressive stupidity is rare, but there’s always some moron out there looking for new, better ways to kill himself and others. Glad you managed to miss the dipshit, Lillith
I’m waiting for someone to come in here and back this up. I see this all the time on the Northway, which is a stretch of highway which goes from Albany north. The thing is, the exits for quite a long way are less than five miles apart mostly, and all the towns are linked by backroads too. PLUS when you get off the Northway in any of these exits there’s immediately a way to get right back onto the Northway going the opposite direction, so you can just shoot back down and hit your exit anyway. There is no reaosn to back up!
South of Albany the exits become 15 miles apart. As far as I’m concerned, this is even more reason to PAY ATTENTION, get off the cell phone, and take the correct exit or take the next one! Since the exits are so far apart, everyone’s going at least 70 miles an hour and more like 75-80. AND it is still painfully easy to get back onto the highway to come back.
So come on all you people who do this. Come in and defend this, if you can.
Unfortunately, I’ve seen this happen one too many times around here. Not only are these drivers royal idiots, but they epitomize the definition of selfish. Why is their time so much more valuable that they have to endanger the lives of all around them?
Lillith, I completely understand your frustration and I’m glad you were able to avoid a potentially dangerous situation.
Here’s where it happens in Cleveland: at the split where I-490 (shortest highway in the country?) goes to the left and the Innerbelt goes to the right. People are still surprised by this, even though it has been open for years now. The first weekend it opened a pick up truck backed up and the driver was killed.
Here in Southern California, you can hurtle past a CHP officer in the slow lane at 75 MPH and he may possibly take the trouble to pull you over… even 80 is not liable to make him take notice if that’s the pace of traffic…
But if you cross the solid white lines that separate two diverging lanes of traffic, he will chase you down and you will get cited. No ifs ands or buts.
That sort of recklessness is one of the things they consider most reckless and dangerous, far more than speeding. (Other things are weaving in and out of traffic, and exhibiting signs of road rage.) Even in heavy, creeping traffic, if you miss an exit and cross those lines in view of a CHP trooper, you’re busted.
“Hey! It’s all you boneheads in the way that are making me late in the first place by driving the speed limit. If you’d just get out of the way so I could go as fast as my car can handle, my limited attention span would have been sufficient for me to remember when my exit was coming up, so it’s all your fault that I’m having to stop and back up. Besides, do you think it’s easy to back up on the freeway when you’re talking on the cell phone, shaving, and finishing your coffee, all at the same time? YOU try it some time!”
The opinions expressed in this poll are not those of any rational person.
Research has shown that every single person that’s ever done this was born by cesarean section. No, seriously, every single one. They’re going down the road, decide they don’t want the later exit, back up and take the easy way out. Every one of them.
I had a dormmate die not doing that exactly, but something very similar. She and another girl were driving home for Thanksgiving, and she overshot the exit a bit. She didn’t stop and back up, but she did try to do a sharp turn onto the ramp. She lost control of the car, hit the railing at pretty close to interstate-cruising speed, and was killed.
I know that stretch of road very well, and the next exit is ten miles down the road. Going on would have delayed her less than half an hour, and it wasn’t like she had a set time to be there. But it was Thanksgiving and I guess she was anxious to get home and see her family. Such a waste.
As a corollary to this rule: If you’re in the far left lane and realize too late that you need to take an exit, do not cut straight across 4 lanes of traffic so you can make it.
What if you head down the on-ramp into stopped traffic, and after a half hour you’ve only moved about ten car lengths, and you think you could pretty easily pull onto the shoulder, throw it into reverse, and slowly head back up the on-ramp and go home on a side street? Is that okay?
Because lord, I was tempted on I-394 yesterday. And damn that state patrol officer who said that the hood-mounted rocket launcher wasn’t street legal.
Lillith Fair, I took the written test for my Ohio driver’s license last week as part of my move up here. That was one of the questions (actually, it was something like “if you miss your exit on a controlled access highway…”) and you had to pick the correct answer - one of them was to pull over, put it in reverse and back up. I got a chuckle from the mental image of someone doing that - because I wouldn’t consider doing it.
The offramp to the carpool lane wasn’t even in sight. I entered 394 westbound from the 3rd Ave/4th Street intersection, and it was a standstill from the ramp meter until well past Highway 100. I admit that while waiting there, I weighed the odds of getting caught in the carpool lane, and what the fine might be, and whether it’d be worth it to get home earlier…
Amazing. Backing up on the highway is one thing too stupid for even Bay Area drivers to do. I’ve never seen anyone pull this in seven years. Cutting through 4 lanes of traffic though - all the time. Especially bad are carpoolers, who must not want to give up their edge for even 1/4 mile. But being in the right lane (which often moves faster around here) a reasonable time before the exit is a concept that I guess isn’t taught in California.
The closest I’ve ever come to death (that I know of) was when an idiot ahead of me missed the exit I was taking and cut across the grassy median to get on it. Either she didn’t look at all, or I was in her blind spot. All I know is that she came within a foot of clipping my front fender. I stood on my brakes, and as she was a congenital idiot, so did she, so I almost plowed into her back bumper. I managed to pull off to the side, out of danger. She pulled over, too, and sent her boyfriend to apologize to me. What made me even angrier was that I had missed my exit - the previous one - and I was taking the next to turn around and go back. Grrrrrr.
I just remembered something dumb that happened to me several years ago. This was before cell phones, are at least before they were common.
I had a flat tire on a highway (I-480). I was in the left lane so I pulled onto the left shoulder. After sitting there for quite awhile, not sure what to do, I got out and crossed the highway and started walking to the exit, which didn’t seem far until I started walking it. Of course, the stupid part was crossing the highway, but I waited a long time until there was a big enough break. Still, I shouldn’t have done it.
Then, before I went up the exit, an Ohio State Trooper picked me up. Here is the second dumb part–not my fault! HE BACKED UP on the right shoulder until he was way past where my car was, then pulled onto the highway. He had time to get all the way over to the left. I guess he called AAA for me. I sat in the police car until the AAA guy finished changing my tire.
Well, at least I lived to tell the tale.
When I was in driver’s ed, way back in the olden days (1975?) in Maryland, all those scary bloody accident movies were made by the Ohio State Police, weren’t they? Hmmmm…