Apologies up front for the lack of profanites to follow.
Recently I have noticed that drivers often extend courtesies to other drivers in a manner that inconveniences the drivers behind them.
Here is a situation I frequently experience near my house. A kinda busy street (Park) intersects a pretty busy street (Roosevelt). There is a traffic light at the intersection. Traffic on Park has a much shorter green than Roosevelt, so if you are on Park and you miss the light, you’ll be waiting for a while.
Very often, people on Park will stop on the green in order to allow people to merge from or turn into store driveways immediately before the intersection - with the result that the folk behind them will miss the light.
Not a huge matter, but if you are running a really short errand - say taking your kid to an activity that starts in 5 minutes, it is hard to add an extra 3 minutes in there. If you make the light, the kid is early, if you miss it, they are late.
And often it is not all that necessary. It doesn’t clear the intersection. And the merger could merge as traffic approaches the yellow/red - instead of during the green.
A similar situation is when you are in a crowd - say getting off a train or leaving a heater. One guy gets up early, gets to the merge point, and then stands there politely ushering people past him - oblivious to te folk standing behind him. If someone is not in a hurry to leave, why don’t they just stay in their seat until the crowd has dispersed? Instead, they seem to almost revel in a public display of their excessive politeness. And the flipside of their intentional polliteness is a predictable if not intentional rudeness towards others.
It just seems to me that being polite to one person is somehow less commendable if it results in inconveniencing someone else. All too often it seems as tho the do-gooder does not consider all of the implications of their actions.
Yesterday, I was first in line at a red light when I saw a billboard that said “Honk if you love America”. So I did. After a few minutes I noticed that the cars behind me were honking as well. I was struck by what a great country we live in as I sat there honking the horn with my new friends.
I have a simple rule with regards to allowing people to merge. If it’s a very busy area and I know the people will have a terrible time merging, I let one car in front of me. I figure if everyone let’s one car merge, then no one is being held up too long. As for turning into driveways, I agree that it’s best to only let people do it on a red light. I try to pay attention and stop before or after the driveway, but I admit to being thoughtless sometimes.
But your OP is right. It’s far ruder to inconvenience more people than you’re helping. Greater good and all that.
The OP is driving on Park (heading north on the right side of the rode, if this is in the U.S.). Inconsiderate buffoons are stopping at the x so that people heading south on Park can turn into the driveway, or people in the driveway can turn onto Park. Since Park gets the short end of the stick, traffic-signal-wise, that makes a bunch of people behind x miss the green light.
I thought maybe it was some European thing but I see now. I haven’t had this problem much.
I do admit to trying to let people on side streets out during heavy, slow moving traffic but I would never stop. I slow down a bit and allow a gap to grow in front so they can get out. Stopping would be rude to the people behind and, I think, illegal, wouldn’t it be?
I almost killed myself and my puppy yesterday after I let this lady in while waiting at a red light. The light finally changed, we’re moving along, the light turns yellow, we’re moving along, I’m speeding up to make the yellow, and she suddenly STOPS, causing me to slam on the brakes and my puppy to fall to the floorboard. Later down the road, I was pretty far behind her by this time, but I see her put on the brakes as a light turned to yellow, then SPEED UP to go through the yellow. Arrgh! At least be consistent in your idiocy! I’ve said before, I’m not letting any more people in, it seems like I get screwed every time.
But I still want people to let ME in when I’m coming out of my driveway on a very busy road. There is a light 2 houses down, so I don’t think I’m inconveniencing anyone when someone leaves me a gap while they’re waiting at the light, it’s a really short red the other way and it stays green for a long time. If it were a really short light and someone was at a stop waiting for me, I’d think about waving them on, but the confusion of me gesturing at them to move along and them steadfastly waiting for me to pull out would take longer than if I just pulled out.
Sometimes considerate drivers can make a judgment call on whether or not letting someone in is going to inconvenience them or the car(s) behind them, but sometimes you just can’t tell! You think you’re being nice letting someone in, not inconveniencing anyone, and then they proceed to come to a stop in the middle of the road, ignoring the turn lane, in order to turn left. Maybe the best bet is to just not let anyone in at all; who cares if the other drivers think you’re inconsiderate and shake their fists at you?
The thing is, that often in this situation, especially if traffic is busy on Park. The person trying to come out the side street/driveway might have to wait through many cycles of the light before they can get out. It seems to me that in busy traffic it’s totally appropriate to stop a long line of traffic to allow one person out into the road. What if that person only has five minutes to get their kid to wherever? Should they just be homebound until rush hour is over?
Um, I guess my OP may not have made it clear, but this particular intersection was just an example.
How about this one? Someone is standing at the side of the street waiting to cross, either on foot or bike - not at a corner or in a designated crosswalk. Or they are on a bike path where it intersects with the road. The bike path has a stop sign, the road does not. Yet, Politeness-(wo)man feels the need to stop auto traffic, put on a big smile, and wave the pedestrian/biker across.
IMO, the vast majority of the time it is better for traffic to continue to flow until a gap naturaly occurs where the pedestrian/biker can cross, or the person attempting to cross can walk up or down a block to a corner where there is a crosswalk or traffic control device.
And I figured I’d get hammered for the “5 minute” remark. I’ll just say, if you end up having to chauffeur 2 or more kids to various activities in a particular evening, it can toss a wrench into your plans if you do not know if a particular jaunt will take 3 minutes or 10. And, as I said, this is not a big deal. And I bear the lion’s share of the fault for allowing my family to get so tightly scheduled, and for living in a place where my kids don’t walk/bike to all of their activities.
Well, in reality, when I’m faced with this sort of situation (as in, when I’m at the “X,”) I’ll let one (1) car go in front of me, assuming that the next cars will extend the same courtesy, thus allowing everybody to be integrated into the traffic stream and to get where they need to go with a minimum of fuss. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to happen, I suppose.
I wouldn’t stop traffic, but I would, once the light turned red and traffic was stopped, allow space to let the person in So I don’t think the person on the side street would have to wait several cycles as one person mentioned.
Heh, there are always so many “stupid” driver threads in the BBQ Pit I almost think it needs it’s own forum.
The following may be a couple of my favorites. Park has left turn lanes at Roosevelt and the signal has a left turn arrow preceding the green.
Assume both the through and turn lane are stopped, waiting for the light to turn from red to green. Someone coming from the other direction wants to cross both lanes of traffic to enter a parking lot. So someone in the left turn (centermost) lane waves them across WITHOUT LOOKING TO SEE IF THEY CAN SIMILARLY CLEAR THE THROUGH LANE! The turning car crosses the left turn lane - and then stops, because cars are bumper-to-bumper in the through lane. So the turner sits there blocking the left turn lane, while the turn arrow comes and goes, and the folk behind the polite driver just sit.
Or a slight variation, someone in the through lane waves a car exiting the driveway into traffic. That car wants to go into the left turn lane - but the turn arrow just stopped and there is no room to get fully into the turn lane. So they sit there wedged at an angle, preventing through traffic to cross the intersection on the green.
Bottomline - while polite driving and waving someone in front of you is generally desireable, it is not of inherent of value, and the “waver” should be aware of the likely consequences before waving. I get the impression some people do it automatically,as tho they are piling up indulgences.
(Obviously, I am trying hard to avoid work today!)
The train thing really pisses me off.I take the commuter train into work every morning. As we pull into Boston, about 1/4th of the train gets their things together, and stands to wait at the doors so they can avoid the morning herd. The rest of the train sits, finishes their papers or conversations or whatever until the doors open. There’s always at least one person who lets everyone else out, making the rest of those who prepared wait the herd. And because half of the herd consists of those not really in a big hurry, it takes 5 minutes to get from the train to the station. When you’re running to catch a connection, 5 minutes makes a difference. It’s a cruel and unusual punishment.
