I go to a Burger King that has a drive-through lane that wraps around two of the building’s corners. You get in it, you turn left around one corner, the order box is on that side, and then you turn left again to get to the windows.
This lane only exists by virtue of a white painted line. This lane is also not much wider than a standard car. Finally, this lane is painted right up against the corners. So when you round the corner, part of your car has to jut out of the lane to swing wide enough to actually make the turn.
Non-drive-through BK traffic also passes right next to this lane, and there is not much extra room for them, either. Some of these cars are also turning around the lot perimeter curb, which limits the room even more. So when I come to a corner, if there is not room for me to get most of the way around the turn, I will wait until there is. Otherwise, a chunk of my car would be sitting out in the way of other cars driving through the small lot, or I would have to cut over the corner curb itself.
Today I’m waiting at the corner before the order box, and a lady pulls up behind me. She cannot see the SUV almost directly around the corner, so she gets an irritated look on her face and beeps. I stick my head out the window and give her a puzzled look. When the SUV starts pulling away, I round the corner.
I give my order and pull up to the next corner. Same situation here. SUV is almost directly around the corner, at the pay window. Here it’s even worse because a dumpster limits the amount of room that other BK traffic has to maneuver. Add to this the fact that cars often come both ways through this gap (though they shouldn’t) and I have even more reason to not stick my car’s nose out there. (Although if I look back and see that a few more feet will make a difference to a car reaching the order box, I’ll reconsider. This was not the case today.)
Beep Lady finishes her order and violently accelerates and brakes up to my backside. Note that she pulled up almost her full car-length. Thus the car behind her could reach the order-box.
At this point I laughed. No, I didn’t have to provoke her like this, but really, she was being an idiot.
“What are you doing??” she yells out her window.
“I’m waiting in line.” was my calm reply.
brief but definitely confused pause “Uh, well, scoot up!”
“No, thank you.”
I got my food and got home without further incident. But Jeez, is my drive-through technique that wrong? Fearing that maybe I just suck at taking corners, I made a little drawing of a drive-through lane and used a box of staples as a car. I couldn’t find any way of getting those staples around that curb without swinging significantly out of the lane.
Eh, it’s Glen Burnie. What the fuck did I expect.
