I think you misunderstood me. I’m not saying that just because you frequently check mirrors etc makes it OK to simply blindly swerve into the next lane assuming it’s safe to do so. Of course you always look where you’re going, before and during, even if you just glanced over three seconds prior.
And I agree with you completely and disagree with your wife on the turn signal thing.
Okay, glad to hear it–I actually did think you were saying that if you’ve been checking all your mirrors all along you can change lanes without making a special point of looking in that lane first. Sorry to have misunderstood you!
Very well. Keep on keeping the shiny side up! 
A vote for “best to drive at safe following distance in order to keep your options open”.
If the person in front of you is slowing down, there is likely a good reason. If you maintain your speed and swerve into the next lane you could be heading right into the situation that caused the driver in front of you to slow down.
Let’s say there is a deer on the highway. The driver in front of you brakes, you go into the next lane while the deer bolts across the highway. You are now picking glass and venison out of your face, that’s not very graceful.
Yes. I don’t believe in the no-win highway scenario. If you find yourself in a “no-win” situation it’s because you missed some vital clue somewhere, be it obvious or subtle. Experienced drivers can often develop a sixth sense about such things, such that when someone else pulls a bonehead move they have already anticipated it and are thus ready to do what is necessary to avoid trouble/disaster.
You are already in a terrible position if touching the brakes means you can’t still change lanes. You can take your foot off the brake if you need to. But if you can’t safely change lanes, you’ve already lost valuable time to brake by the time you realize that.
I think 20% is very high, but I do think there are accidents that are not avoidable. Years ago, a semi traveling in one direction on the DC beltway lost control and crashed through a dividing wall into the lane of traffic going in the opposite direction. A woman hit the semi and was killed. There was nothing she could have done, one second she’s driving down the highway and the next there is a semi coming through the wall in front of her like the Kool Aid Pitcher Man, but that kind of thing is extremely rare.
Your wife gets upset that you use your turn signal AND she’s been in six collisions?
No two ways about it, she is a fucking terrible driver.
I do these too.
If I’m following the centerline of the road, I don’t signal. Example here, traffic entering from the west has a stop sign; neither of the other approaches to the intersection has a stop sign. If I am aproaching from the north and plan to head east (or from the east and heading north), I will not use my signal.
Here’s a really screwy one. Believe it or not, this basically behaves as a single four-way-stop intersection. Traffic approaching from the west and exiting east is, topologically, proceeding “straight” through the intersection; likewise with traffic approaching from the east and exiting to the west. Yet sometimes these people will signal a right turn when they first enter the intersection, and then signal a left turn halfway through the intersection as they roll their steering wheel to the left to complete their jog through the intersection. To other drivers, it initially appears that these folks are going to exit the intersection to the north or south - until they suddenly start signalling left and then cut across another lane of traffic. In other words, their mindless use of the turn signal (so as to correspond reflexively with whatever is happening at the steering wheel at that particular moment) results in dangerous ambiguity as seen by other drivers.
I really wish they would put a roundabout there.
This is not on par with drunk driving or anything, but I’d say that by signalling a turn when you are not going to change lanes or leave the marked roadway you are presently traveling on, you will probably confuse the drivers around you.
I’m with you except for the last part, signalling just to go around a sharp bend. Problem scenario: just after the bend, there is a junction (or whatever you call them in the US, if that is a British term) where someone is waiting to pull out. They see you signalling and think you’re going to turn off the road, and they pull straight out in front of you. Strictly speaking that’s dangerous driving on their part - they should wait until they’re sure you’re turning. But people don’t tend to do that in reality.
Nobody should trust turn signals on other cars. It’s still the right thing to do to use them because it alerts other drivers that something might happen, and they should be driving more cautiously around you. Overuse of turn signals can be annoying, but never dangerous.
That’s not how the “defensive driving” aproach works though - it’s about what other drivers do do, not what they should do. And they do tend to trust turn signals. If you’re signalling to turn, people often pull out in front of you without waiting, you see it all the time.
Well I do agree with that, but it’s not the turn signal causing the danger.
That’s a good point. I don’t think I would signal in that situation, because I’d be aware I’m signalling a turn I don’t actually intend to make, but to be honest I’m not certain I wouldn’t.
I think all blame here lies with the intersection itself. I would definitely signal a right and then a left–and I’d do it on purpose, not mindlessly–because I am, in fact, turning right, and then left. (Are there lane markers here that I’m not seeing, though?)
If I approached from the west and didn’t signal, I’d expect other drivers to understand me to be, first of all, failing to signal a turn, and second of all, intending to exit southwards.
Well, like I said it’s been about ten years since either of us was in any kind of collision so judgments based on the six from before may be out of date.
That is a bad driver who likely has one foot on the gas and the other on the brake. Drives me nuts.
I live right near there, and I hate it too. I want to put up a sign on the Dhu Varren approach: “No turn signal for Green road”. But I doubt it would help.
They will, but only when the adjacent property is developed and they can make the developer pay for it. It’s been for sale forever.
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No, dammit! :mad:
It’s a four-way intersection, not two three-way ones. The signs say that. When people do that, it means their turn signal doesn’t mean anything.
Gaaahhhhh!!! :mad: :mad: :mad:
ETA: Use street view. “All Way”.
Yeah, the OP is artificial. Truth be told, key factors in which is right depend on following distance, surrounding traffic, how quickly the person is decelerating, and other things unknown in the OP.
To present a counterpoint, and not to attack you specifically, I definitely have encountered drivers who signal their intention to change lanes into my lane under conditions when they should not make the lane change – for example, I am passing them on the left, they have no speed up, and I am following someone in my lane without sufficient clearance for the lane-changer to safely enter my lane UNLESS I myself were to brake hard to open a gap. In that case, it’s stupid and selfish of Mr. “I am going 35, and want into the passing lane NOW” to try and force his way in front of me, so i keep closed up, don’t allow him, and within seconds have flashed past him and he may now change lanes and slowly accelerate to highway speed at his leisure.
But I’ll bet he goes onto messageboards and complains that other drivers considered his signal “a sign of weakness” and would not let him over.
Eh. Tiny or not, it’s larger than braking, and routinely exceeds many people’s cognitive capacity.
Interestingly, my wife has a perspective on this. She detests any change in speed – even changes so subtle that the speedometer needle has not visibly moved off the number it’s nailed to cause her to ask why someone “braked hard” when they only let off the gas infinitesimally. She acknowledges that her sensitivity probably comes from being driven by her alcoholic father, whom she hated; apparently, spontaneous lurching changes in speed are a feature of driving drunk, and she’s almost got a form of PTSD about that. Could something like that be a factor how some people react to braking as “ungraceful?”
So what? Being stuck behind someone is an “I don’t like it” argument, not an unsafe behavior.
My wife once changed lanes smoothly and swiftly when the right lane suddenly began braking. She had plenty of room in the left lane – until the person who had been in front of her in the right lane changed lanes without noticing she was overtaking, right into her. He was (correctly) charged in the accident, but a defensive driver would have been expecting morons to dart over without looking at that moment.