No, I will NOT pull the fuck out!

[Silver_Serpentine]

Yeesh. I’m with the OP here.

A lot of intersections around here have houses or cars or something blocking my view so I can’t see very far if I sit behind the stop sign. So, I have to pull up a little further (maybe within a foot of the crossing traffic) to see cars coming from the left for a right hand turn.

Now, my car doesn’t have a very good turning radius. From that position, my car has the potential to swing into the second lane, just a little. It might, it might not. I don’t want to take that chance. So, I wait until both lanes clear, or until the closest lane is clear far enough for me to accelerate to speed, AND the far lane is clear enough that I don’t have to worry about bumping into someone or getting clipped.

I don’t care what the laws say about what is and isn’t legal. There are stupid drivers who don’t pay attention to people pulling out, or even some people who aren’t stupid, but start changing lanes before you start to pull into the close lane. So, I wait.

I don’t care if it’s “stupidly over cautious” driving. I’d rather have people honking at me than get in a crash.

[stupid impatient driver story]

In Round Rock, there’s a coffeeshop on the corner of Main St and Mays. Main St has a barrier between the two lanes of traffic, which means I have to go away from Mays (when parking in front of the coffeeshop), turn left onto another street, turn left again, and then I can get to an intersection where I can turn left onto Mays.

So, I’m sitting there at around 9pm, waiting to turn left. The light at Mays and Main is red, which means that there’s no oncoming northbound traffic, and the southbound traffic is stopped at the light, lining up past my stopsign. The drivers in the closer lane were nice and left a gap so folks could get into the clear far lane (traffic backup was much shorter, due to people turning right). However, due to how far back the close lane is, I can’t see any oncoming traffic in the far lane.

So, I sit there. Too dangerous, I think. I have two passengers in my car.

Car pulls up behind me. Flashes his lights. Screw you buddy, I’m sitting here. So, he decided to pull into the far southbound lane. Pulls out . . .

Directly into the path of a car in that far lane. Crunch. I laaaaauuuughed. But only because it was a low-speed incident, and on the engine-part was hit, not the seating area. I had to wonder what that person was thinking after the accident. Everyone in that car was fine, so you know. Just very very stupid.

[/sids]

[MsWhatsit]

I have a friend who drives his car under the assumption that everyone around him will obey the laws of traffic, and if they don’t, well, tough toenails. He has been in several accidents. Most were not technically his fault, but I attribute many of them to the fact that he drives with this attitude.

I, on the other hand, drive with the attitude that most of the other people on the road around me are idiots. I am not going to make a right turn into the right-hand lane when there’s someone barrelling down in the left-hand lane, because I assume that that person is an idiot and will change lanes just as I’m pulling out, sideswiping me and ruining both of our days. Similarly, if I’m waiting to pull out of an intersection, and there’s an oncoming car with its turn signal on, indicating that it is going to turn onto the road I’m on, I assume that the driver is an idiot who has forgotten to turn his/her turn signal off, and will not actually be turning onto my road. So I don’t pull out until I see the car actually start to slow down or make its turn. This practice has saved me from an accident or near-accident on at least a couple of occasions (when the driver turns out to really be an idiot who forgot to turn his/her turn signal off).

Maybe this pisses off the people who are waiting behind me, but I’d rather take an extra minute or so to pull out, than gamble my safety on the chance of another driver’s not being a total idiot.

[SCSimmons]

@Nametag

Cite? I, too, was sternly warned (by my driving instructors and the California Drivers’ Handbook) never to change lanes in an intersection. The vehicle code, however, is silent on the subject: it’s just a bad idea, you see, not an infraction. I suspect the same is true in other jurisdictions–perhaps yours?

My wife received a traffic citation for this, about twelve years ago in Illinois. That was her only infraction, and that’s how the ticket read: “Changing lanes in an intersection.”

If the cop made that up, I am so ticked.

[Nametag]

Well, twelve years is a long time to hang onto a ticket, but if she still has it, I’d be interested in seeing the transportation code citation. I don’t see anything like that anywhere (although I could easily have missed it, or just been looking in the wrong place.

[InkBlot]

I have another reason to follow SanibelMan’s lead, if only for myself. My car, with it’s poor turning radius, nudges a bit into the outer lane during a right turn like this. So, I look for an open spot in both lanes before I turn. I’m not as critical about space in the outer lane. I look for enough space in the inner lane for me to turn, and bring myself up to speed, but only enough space in the outer lane for traffic to notice me doing so. I figure if I have enough space in my inner lane, they have enough space to asses the situation. I’m sure some will think I’m assuming too much, and others not enough…your mileage, literally, may vary, but this is my two cents.
InkBlot
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