People don't use turn signals because...

I’d say the way he’s generally handled the situation - sticking it out, trying to explain himself, listening to the point of being open to change… distinctly contradict that he’s an asshole.

I don’t think anyone here was advocating obstructionist driving - MrSquishy was saying that making room was a nice thing to do, and I was adding to that - it is also the legal thing to do.

You mean that if there are two lanes of traffic, no merge, highly congested, and a person in lane A signals to get into lane B, the person in lane B is legally required to let him in?

Let me say I have my doubts about it - I’ve never seen it in any of the driver books in the five states where I’ve had licenses.

Yes, this is the kind of intuition I was trying to voice in my previous post as well.

-FrL-

I’m sure that everyone here recognizes that Czarcasm was completely inappropriate when he moved the thread so obviously. Just so you know, I truly doubt anyone puts much stock in that thread,Cz. Your moving it was out of the blue and calling someone an asshole kind of spelled it out.,

Hmmm, I would love to edit my earlier post. Whadever.

No, not quite - the person in lane B is legally required to NOT do things that intentionally prevent person A from getting in. This law as I know it here is for merge situations, where both drivers have equal rights to the lanes. I’m not sure about simple lane changes, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t allowed to obstruct that, either. Obstructionist driving causes accidents and road rage.

Yup.

When I first responded to this thread, it was in IMHO. If the OP had opened the thread in the Pit, then I probably would have refrained from responding at all because I would have known in advance the OP sought a bitch session instead of a poll or a desire for gaining a better understanding of human behavior. In hindsight, as soon as the thread was moved to the Pit, I should have abandoned it instead of getting sucked into defending against ad homenim attacks and strawmen.

No more traffic threads for me, regardless of the forum, unless I don’t engage in offending driving practice that is the subject of the thread. If the thread is started as a valid pursuit of knowledge in some other forum, I can just wait; surely it will end up in the Pit where I can just sit on my perch and throw stones at anyone who admitted engaging in the offending behavior.

I guess fighting ignorance sometimes must yield to a mod’s desire to berate a poster for doing something IRL the mod doesn’t like.

Thanks to all who came to my defense.

I am extremely tired, partially drunk and on dial up so I didn’t click on your cites. However, I cannot imagine that they apply to two lanes turning right onto multi-lane streets, which is what I was talking about.

Or, maybe they don’t have those up there - I haven’t driven in San Francisco all that often. :wink:

Kathy

Heh, OK :slight_smile: I just couldn’t imagine anyone under 100 years of age who didn’t speed in Sac…

Re: the rest of your post, I so agree!

Kathy

What a “nice person does” may apply to places where there isn’t much traffic, but in areas like Southern Cal, if you are not going near the speed that the lane you want is, then you jolly get to that speed before moving over. You as an individual are not as important as the other 724,084 people on that freeway and if your lane change causes the cars behind you to have to slow down, you are creating a chain reaction that will slow the whole freeway down, maybe for miles, maybe for hours. It has nothing to do with “my lane” and everything to do with the definition of “merge”.

Besides, saying that we all share the road and then expecting me to get out of your way don’t really go together…

Kathy

People don’t use turn signals because, the world turns around them.

Oops, looks like I misread my cite. You can legally turn into any lane for either right turns or left turns in California, unless otherwise marked.

I think this sums up most of the annoying things that other drivers do that piss me off. Not just drivers either.

Since these two things are so prevalent in this thread, for the sake of efficiency, I recommend we consolidate the terms in to one of the following:

adhomestrawmen

strawmehomenim

Adhomestrawmen Strawmehomenim – isn’t that the new ruler of Iran?

? See CVC 22100(a)

Yep, it looks pretty clear that for a right turn you have to begin in the rightmost lane, and the turn has to be “as close as practicable”, but the lane you wind up in doesn’t have to be the rightmost.

How does one turn from the rightmost lane, stay as close as practicable to the curb through the turn, and end up anywhere else but the rightmost lane upon completion of the turn?

If you’re driving a semi?