Look, you can throw all the A pillar cites at me as you want. The fact of the matter is that we’re talking about a maneuver that is EXACTLY THE SAME AS A REGULAR LEFT HAND TURN. Exactly the same. No different at all. You’re driving down the road, see your left turn coming up, check your rear view mirror and see it’s Joe’s big red Dodge pickup, remind yourself you need to call Joe’s wife to see what you should bring to the party on Saturday, take off the cruise control, check for oncoming traffic, check for any cars coming from the left, and make your turn.
See? Exactly the same. Except for a 12-foot* jog to the left in the last couple of hundred feet as you brake. Which in and of itself would reveal that mythical same-speed-but-hidden-by-the-A-pillar car that you have somehow managed not to see for the last 30 seconds, but that’s probably because you’re fucking blind and shouldn’t be on the road in the first place. Or my now-deceased grandfather, either or.
Anyhow. That’s why I couldn’t care less about your silly A-pillar cites.
Yes, I agree that the speed limit is tangental to the discussion of whether your illegal turn is a good practice. But you made the assertion that 55 saves lives, and it doesn’t. That would be another interesting thread.
In your original post you seem to think that making this illegal turn is somehow a courtesy that you are providing the car following you.
It’s not exactly the same because you’re putting yourself on the wrong side of the road which puts you in the path of the obscured car who has not seen you because he’s not expecting you to be there and hasn’t looked in your direction. Once you see him after moving over to the left lane, it may be that he’s already turning and accelerating toward you, and then what are you going to do? Veer back on to your side of the road into that car that was following you?
But as I said earlier, there is an alternative method that is just as courteous but doesn’t involve crossing the centreline. So when given two equivalent options, why would anyone choose the one that carries higher risk, regardless of how slight?
Or I could drive for 300 feet in the left hand (oncoming) lane of traffic.
Out of those five extremely common scenarios* only the first is completely legal, yet it also happens to be the maneuver that has the most potential for disaster, death, mayhem, and inconvenience. And yet you presume to tell me the last scenario is MORE dangerous than the first? For real?
Ok, driving backwards at 50mph using only my mirrors might be slightly hyperbolic, but it’s significantly safer than taking that route during a January snowstorm. At night. On a rural road with no shoulders. shudder
Where have I ever said that your last scenario is more dangerous than the first scenario?
Take a given intersection, you have the option of turning left by crossing the centreline for a hundred meters (or however far you need) so the guy behind you doesn’t have to slow down. Or you can pull off to the right, wait for the following car to pass and then make your turn. The first scenario is illegal in some places, may possibly confuse the following driver, and puts you in no mans land for the time the following driving is passing you. The second is just as courteous to the following driver but puts you in a safer position to make the turn.
Why would you take the more risky option? What is the benefit?
BTW, what’s behind those trees in your fifth scenario? Did you know what was behind them when crossed the centreline for your farmers turn?
And yes I drive, presently I mainly drive in a city, up to six months ago I drove in areas that are probably more remote than you can imagine, I even gave you a street view link before.
Erm. The second option you’ve given - around here, at least - means “ditch” and isn’t viable. No shoulder, steep sides, generally un-recoverable-from. In winter, that’s where plows put snow. Even if you pull off as far as you can so your vehicle is at a 20 degree slope you’re still taking up half a lane.
Farmer’s turns are done all the time here. The are simple and easy and effective. They aren’t doing something “unexpected,” because we see them all the time.
Just went back to check my links and I can see why you’d not catch that detail. That grass on the nether sides of the white lines is waist high - clay soil, so the roads are built up from the surrounding area to avoid flooding/swamping.
Your cone dude is comfortably parked on a shoulder. So there are obviously shoulders on some of the roads. Are you saying that you’d take my second option if there was enough shoulder to be able to do it?
And that road you’ve given as an example of where you’d do a farmers turn kind of negates all this talk about being able to see if there are any cars on the cross road. There’s a line of trees obscuring much of the approach to the intersection.
If anyone in our part of the world knew what a traffic circle and/or Jersey turn was it’d be standard, I’m sure. But they’re not, hence the ‘famers turn’.
Assuming that a four-lane no-stoplight/overpass-only divided highway is a primary road; Minnesota 23 in link 1 is a tertiary road; cone dude is on a fifth-iary road; driving backwards using my mirrors is a 7th-iary road. And then there’s several roads between that and gravel.
Right. I’ll grant that on a road with no shoulder at all a farmers turn might be preferable to having someone riding your arse while you slow down.
This is where I am by the way. I don’t drive here, but I work here and used to drive here. Now days my driving is done in a real city some 1500 miles away.
Mmm, and I’ve just remembered that Cone Guy’s shoulders have only been around ~10 years - when I was growing up and learning to drive that road looked like my third link, and the road in my third link was…significantly worse. I can recall more than one coversation that concluded with “The guy who runs the county roads should be required to live five miles out of town”. At least the 7th-iary roads have the white shoulder lines regularly re-painted these days.
And, again - it really has nothing to do with someone “riding your arse”. It’s simply a matter of being nice to someone who has been and/or will be nice to you.
I wasn’t suggesting they would, just thought it was an interesting contrast to your links.
I didn’t mean riding your arse by way of tailgating, I just meant holding someone up, ie, they end up stuck behind you as you almost come to a standstill.
Assuming no traffic and a crop shorter than corn in August, people blow by this stop sign all the time heading west…but no one would ever do it while heading east, nor would anyone attempt a farmers turn. Because both would be stupid.