Pointless Ranting About Driving

The BBQ Pit
1

I know it’s pointless to rant about idiot drivers, and I’m sure we’ve had about eleventy hundred threads like this, but I can’t help myself.

If you’re approaching a stoplight to turn right, and the person opposite you is turning left (to end up going the same way) and you both have a green light, you get to go first. The person turning left has to yield the right-of-way to those opposite him or her who are going straight or turning right. It’s not that hard, people.

However, there is indeed one similar situation in which this rule does not apply. If you are attempting to turn right at an intersection and it has one of those little separate turn lanes that juts off from the other lanes before it gets to the intersection, please note that you will more than likely encounter a YIELD sign. That sign means you YIELD the right-of-way to all traffic, including those who are turning left from the opposite side of the intersection. I know that the situation looks remarkably similar to the one above where it was indeed your turn to go first, but we’re in a whole new world now. If you’re confused, just remember this simple piece of advice. **If you see a yield sign: YIELD. **

And while I’m on the subject, why is it that almost every time I’m going somewhere I see some brain donor almost cause an accident because he or she didn’t realize the lane they were using was ending? I can understand getting caught in a situation like that if it’s your first time driving down the particular stretch of road. But I see it ALL. THE. TIME. Am I to believe that every time I drive to the shop I’m encountering someone on their very first trip to Plano? Or are the same idiots making the same mistake over and over throughout their lives? The mind boggles.

Oh and one thing I forgot to mention above. Don’t offer to let me go when it’s your turn, cowboy. I stopped because I, unlike you and most likely everyone you associate with, know both when to make my car go and when to make it stop as to make life easier for the other conscientious drivers around me. Don’t stop even though it’s your turn, and start maniacally waving me on like I’m the one who’s causing some kind of hold-up here. JUST GO. You and your weird sense of generousity is costing us all time and mental anguish.

Oh and even one more thing, allow me to speak to the backer-inners for a moment. You know the ones; they feel the need to back in parking spots wherever they go because they’ve deluded themselves into thinking it’s doing something positive for them and their hideous vehicles. Here’s a tip, slick. **You spend far more time carefully backing into a parking space while trying to avoid the cars in the adjacent spaces than you would backing out into the relatively spacious drive. **Look around, dude. You’re at the grocery store, not the Superbowl. It’s not going to be that hard to back out. You are costing yourself precious seconds on this earth that could better be spent waxing your automobile and posting pictures of it on the internets.

Thank you for your attention.

2

I had a particularly annoying type in front of me today. For some unknown reason, she routinely stopped about 3 or 4 car lengths behind the car in front of her at red lights, then after 30 seconds, would decide to move up a car length or two, then after another 30 seconds (about when the light was about to change), would move up to the proper position of maybe 1/2 a car length.

The annoying thing was that this unnecessarily prevents people from getting into the left-hand turn lane. When I got to the intersection where I was turning left, sure enough, she did it again. I honked at her and gestured towards the turn lane to indicate that I wanted to get into it so that I could get the left-hand turn arrow, and she didn’t move, so I had to pull up on the median to get to it. Why can a person not figure out that someone might want to turn left?!?! Arrrrrgh!!!

3

Hah. I had the same asshole in a giant Chevy Excrement run into the back of my car twice in ten minutes… in the drive-through lane at McDonald’s.

I hereby win the bad-driver-off.

4

You know Slacker my husband is one of those people who stays in the merging lane until it actually ends and then…doh!..he’s fighting to get over because his lane ended. I refrain from commenting on his driving because I have, on occasion, been called a “fucking nag”. But it drives me crazy every time and I’ve bitten my tongue half off on occasion.

The thing that gets me (and I see it every single day on the interstate on my way to work) is the drivers who leave the right lane and get into the merging lane shoot past half a dozen cars and then have to merge again. I can’t understand how they can’t see that their actions are contributing to the slow down associated with merging traffic at rush hour. If they would just stay in their lane or get over to the middle or left lane we’d all be able to move a bit faster.

I hate them. All of them.

5

Words of wisdom I heard here: When driving, don’t be nice, be predictable.

6

Exactly.

I have another thing to add: If you have not gotten into the left hand turn lane and you pass all the drivers in the left hand turn lane, you do not get a free pass to make a left hand turn anyway, even if you need to. Why? Because you morons nearly cause an accident every time you do it, and there’s a place where you can make a u-turn just ahead and not cause a major pileup because you’re unobservant and selfish.

7

Mine was the other day. I’m driving 70 in a 60 zone in the far left lane - which wasn’t fast enough for the people passing me. Now, I’m thinking “I’ve seen two cops with people pulled over in the past six miles (must be ticket quota day), and I’ll move over as fast as one of you speed demons gives me an opening” when a woman passes me in a little black Jetta and flips me off, then cuts in front on me. OK.

A few minutes later, near my destination, traffic starts to creep. A few minutes after that, you see what the slowdown is all about - three cars pulled over to the side and my little bird keeper standing on the side at the road yelling at someone.

8

What’s the Straight Dope on a merging lane? I always get over as soon as I realize I will need to, but I thought I heard here that the lanes are designed so that everyone should use both lanes up to the merge point and then take turns?

9

The one that’s been making me crazy in the last year or two is that people will turn right out of the second lane instead of moving into the turning lane. Yes, there may have been parked cars in much of the lane but it is more than clear a good couple car’s lengths before the turn - but do they move into that lane? Noooo. They’ll stay in the driving lane, including to wait for pedestrians to cross. Grrr.

10

The through lane has right-of-way. That means, the merging traffic yields right-of-way to the through traffic. In other words, if the merging traffic can’t get into the through traffic smoothly, then the merging traffic is going to be sitting there and waiting.

The “taking turns” is one of those annoying things that everyone thinks is the polite response, which as the OP notes, only makes life all the more painful for everyone.

If the lane is ending, there’ll be signs saying so. Those signs are there so that drivers can plan ahead for that to happen – instead of always relying on the kindness of strangers.

11

This happens to me all the time:

I want to move over one lane. In the lane I’m moving to, and behind me, there’s a driver who wants to move over into my lane. I’m a little ways ahead of him, I’m signaling, and I’m starting to make little drifting motions into his lane. Rather than hold his place and just move straight over, he stomps on the gas and passes me so that he can change lanes in front of me. This despite there’s no one behind me for an eighth of a mile! Why do they do this? And the knuckle-nuts who did this today then promptly turned into an off-ramp after pulling this stupid maneuver. I hope he gave himself the testosterone-speed demon medal of accomplishment.

12

Amen.

Let me add one: I don’t know when this happened, but people seem to have forgotten that if you are turning right, you move as far to the right as possible before making the turn. If there’s room between you and the curb for a semi to pass you on the right, you’re not doing it correctly. Did they stop teaching this in driver’s ed? So here’s a note to Joe Apex in the 4Runner who moves over to the very left edge of the lane and then whips around to the right to make the turn: You are driving to the Quickie Mart - you are not on the F1 circuit, o.k.?

13

Here is one that aggravates me every day. I have taken a great deal of time and effort to draw you a picture, so now I will try to explain what is going on here. :slight_smile:

The decimals are a concrete median. I am in the lane represented by the equals sign, because I wish to turn right. This lane gets quite backed up at about 5 o’clock, but I stay in it because that’s how things are supposed to work. However, many dillholes cut in front of the line by using the lane represented by the plus sign and turning right at the intersection. That slows down my lane because even when there is a green light, people in the equals lane have to make sure that someone in the plus lane (which ought to go straight ahead) isn’t trying to turn right at the same time they are. Know what I mean? Damn those plus sign people! Why don’t they just wait their turn!
------------------------------>
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+…=
+…=
+…=
+…=
+…=
+…=

  • =
  • =
  • =
  • =
14

Sorry, I think I didn’t say it right. I thought I heard on the Dope that the traffic designer people expect traffic to use both lanes right up until the merging point, and for traffic not to all merge miles before it. That they plan on both lanes full when thinking about traffic volume??

15

Can I ask a question, please? I know this isn’t GQ, but I just thought of this while reading this thread. On my commute, I have to go down a tiny side road. At one point I come to a stop sign where I am confronted with a 6 lane + turning lane main route where there is no light for those cars. I will have to wait and find the exact right 5 seconds of clear space to make a mad Frogger like dash across to safety so I can continue along my side road. Occasionally, there will already be a car across from me who wants to make a left (from their POV, so they are crossing my path). So, who gets to go first, me or them? TIA.

And now my mini rant. The other day I was merging onto the freeway. There was one lone pickup that happened to end up right next to me by the time I came around the circular entrance ramp and got up to speed. I obviously have the yield and decide that slowing down was a better option than speeding up to merge onto the freeway. Well this numbskull decides that he was going to slow down too. We both end up going about 30mph in a 65mph zone until the merge lane ended. Then I had to downshift and floor it to get on. Idiot.

OK, well I’ve thought of more. I hate those people who don’t notice the “Lane Ends in One Mile” sign, and don’t notice the “Lane Ends in Half a Mile” sign, and don’t notice the “Lane Ends in a Quarter Mile” sign, and don’t notice the “Lane Ends Ahead” sign, and then miss the “Lane Ends Now” sign. But I usually give them a break - they might be out of towners - they might not have ‘signs’ and ‘lanes that end’ where they are from. But what really irks me are people who drive along blissfully without planning any sort of route in their heads. They will come up to a light and decide that shifting to the left lane is a good idea right before they get to the light - knowing full well that they have to make a right hand turn in 100ft. By the time the light turns green there is a line of cars in the right lane and they can’t get over. ARRRGGHHH!

16

Assuming you both have stop signs, I think whoever got there first has the right-of-way. In my experience almost no one actually observes this though, so be careful.

17 

    |    |    |    |    |
               |    |    |    |    |
...............|    |    |    |    |
...............|    |    |    |     \
...............|    |    |    | \    \
...............|    |    |    |  \    \
...............|    |    |    |   \    \
...............|    |    |    |    \    \_______________
______________ |    |    |    |      \__________________This is the right turn lane
_  _  _  _  _  _  _ O_  _  _  O  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  
_____________ O______O________________
_  _  _  _  _  _  _ O_  _  _  O  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  
_____________ O______O________________

I can’t figure out how to maintian my spaces, so ignore the above diagram. Imagine this situation. Four lane road 2 lanes each way. This is the T intersection that I go through everyday on the way to work. I need to turn right here (most people seem to as well). There’s a right turn lane that turns into the right lane of the perpendicular street. The people turning left from the opposite direction can ONLY get into the left lane of the perpendicular street. There is NO WAY that they can even get to the right lane without jumpng a median.

Yet, almost everday, some jackass stops in the right turn lane and waits for all the traffic turning left into the left turn lane to stop. JUST FUCKING DRIVE

I swear I’m gonna lose it and ram the next person that stops there.

18

Close. You are right for the merge lanes following on ramps that constitute 99% of all the merge lanes most of us will ever see. But there’s, as usual, an exception.

If the road is leaving town, and you’re losing a lane on the main highway, or a lane is closed for reconstruction, and traffic is heavy enough to make it necessary to slow, then you take turns. (E.g., it’s a four-lane road through town and out into the populated area surrounding it, but now it’s narrowing to a two-lane road, and for some obscure reason everybody and God’s half-brother has decided to take that road today, so where it narrows is backed up – the people in the right and left outbound lanes have equal right to the new single outbound lane, and take turns. If the right lane is closed for construction, so everybody needs to move into the left lane through the work zone, you take turns entering that single-lane stretch. Pennsylvania, I know, posts signs advising motorists of just this fact – use both lanes to the merge point, then take turns.

A little bit of a nitpick – but one that might save people aggravation.

19

I am on my bike. I am right behind you. You are stopped at this intersection. This stupid intersection I go through every day. Why are you ALWAYS here, in front of me?

I know that you are not going straight, because if you were, you would drive smack into that building, or into that little alley with no exit for cars.

I know for certain that you must be turning either left or right.

I, however, am going straight, since I am not in a car and the physics are somewhat different.

I have no interest in getting smushed under your fender. So if you are turning right, nothing would please me more than to pass you on your left. If you are turning left, it would positively thrill me to pass you on your right.

I cannot do either if you don’t fucking signal.

And you, you over there. I am glad you figured out how to use your turn signal. I just wish you had done it sooner than the instant that you turned. It’s a good thing I noticed that your wheels are already pointed to the right, because I was able to take evasive action before getting smushed, no thanks to you who almost smushed me.

It is jerkoffs like you that make these roads a million times more dangerous for me. Intersections are places where careless turning drivers often knock cyclists over, and often crush us under your wheels.

I would like to trust that “no signal” means “I am not turning. I am proceeding straight ahead.” However, in this city it means no such thing, it means “watch closely, I am equally likely to do something stupid as to proceed straight ahead.”

20

Sorry, “thought I heard on the Dope” isn’t much support for your position. Let’s do some quick googling. To help, lanes that end (i.e., are not through) are also called “drop lanes”.

article on AZ traffic:

Seattle Times article:

You can google up your state’s (or states’) driver’s manual; it’s probably on line. I think you’ll see that (1) drivers in the lane ending yield to through traffic, and (2) yielding drivers must stop if they cannot safely merge into the traffic flow.

Arguing what “traffic designer people” expected or intended is pointless (and not supported by the cites above); traffic laws are what regulates how you’re expected to behave when your lane ends. You’re expected to merge – and merge does not mean “take turns with the people who don’t have to merge,” it means “yield to the people who don’t have to merge.”