Sometimes I’ll go through a green light, go up half a block, make a U-turn on the street, come back to the intersection and turn right, all because I didn’t want to wait for the left-turn light.
Sometimes I go diagonally to my destination, taking a right, then a left, then a right, then a left at every street I come to.
Sometimes I’ll take the highway for half a mile just to save 20 seconds on my commute.
Anyone else have stupid car tricks?
That stuff is hardly stupid. Odd perhaps, but not stupid.
On the other hand, I used to occasionally drag race people in my '65 Mustang GT Convertible… in REVERSE gear. Now THAT is stupid.
If I miss the exact off ramp for my intended branch on a cloverleaf, I will merely take the other three portions of that same interchange to effect the rerouting. In some cases, this allows me to avoid any surface street feeders to the other freeway I am getting to.
A PhD who was riding with me one time was stunned by the simplicity of this solution and adopted the method on the spot.
I also look for left turn activity and other indicators so as to gauge when my light will turn green as I approach it. This allows me to keep my car in motion the entire time. It reduces both the wear and tear on the automobile and dramatically decreases the exhaust emmissions of my vehicle. Using this trick, I have also amazed more than one girlfriend with my ability to predict the timing of traffic lights.
Yours Truly,
The Stoplight Svengali
My villager apparently likes to be rear ended.
Ummm…
How about…
Having a few at a local bar, getting into your car, throwing the car into reverse by mistake, and backing into your buddy’s car, which is parked head-in, right behind you?
Messed up my back bumper. His car was fine.
I get off the freeway for half a mile to save 5 minutes. (If only they’d finish one part of the construction before they start work somewhere else… grumble)
[sup]Warning! Don’t try this at home. Ever![/sup]
When I was much, much younger and at least slightly less intelligent, I drove my mom’s car, a 1966 Oldsmobile 88 between a telephone pole and the guy wire at about 60 miles an hour on the curb by jumping the car first up onto the sidewalk. I did this to prove to my friend that I really wasn’t too drunk to drive. It scared the hell out of him. He never questioned me again. He did, I am certain, believe that I was too stupid to drive.
I used to take a shortcut through a grocery store parking lot in order to get home. Pull into the parking lot, drive parallel to the front of the store, turn a hard left at the corner of the store and into their back lot. The back lot had a driveway which led out onto a neighborhood street.
Until one night, I pulled this maneuver, at high speed, with a girlfriend in my '72 Gremlin…
…and I discovered that someone had installed vertical steel posts into the pavement intending to block the very path that I had intended to take.
“Hmmmm,” I thought, “going too fast to stop in time! Maybe I can just limit the damage by trying to go between them. I’ll probably lose my side mirrors and scrape the hell out of the doors and fenders, but I think that’ll be the best.”
Actually, I thought… “GAAAAAAAAAAAAUGGHHHHHHH!”
and I shot between two of the posts.
didn’t hear any scraping
my mirrors were still intact
Cool!
Checked out my car when I got home and, sure enough, not a scratch!
I went back the next day, in my Gremlin, to check out the situation with a cooler head.
Sure enough, I was lucky enough to pick out the two posts that were far enough apart to allow my car to pass through with about 1/2 inch on each side.
Needless to say, I took the long way 'round after that!
took the service road of the LIE to scope out the good exits to the service rd (and to the Northern State pkwy - a alternate to the LIE) so I can go a long distance w/o many lights or congestion on the service road.
Many many other traffic avoidance routes.
I don’t know if it’s a trick, but it’s definitely stupid. When I see someone across an intersection waiting to turn across my lane of traffic, and they’re nosed out into my lane, I cut as close as possible to the front of their cars. In NYC, I don’t get much of a reaction, but in suburbian CT (where I grew up), I used to have drivers diving for the passenger seat. It also works if you’re taking a left at a 4-way and the target is pulled past the white “Stop Here” line.
Oh, and I cut through gas stations when I can. There are also places near where I used to live that there would be “jug handles” to take right turns (veer right, around a bend, facing the left turn). If I came up to a red light, I’d take the jug handle and turn right at the end, thus circumventing the red. Had to keep an eye out for cops, though.
Tricks eh? There were several things we did as Dallas youths to hasten the demise of our family’s primary mode of transportation.
One was to flip the air intake cover so that whenever you floored it you’d hear this wwwwaaaaAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!! My dumbass self would forget to flip it back after a Saturday night out, which invariably led to a Sunday going to church discovery as Dad tried to get us there on time.
Also, at least for the '75 Monte Carlo, you could apply the brake hard in a standing stop, give it lots of gas and slowly let off the brake. Three wheels would stay locked but the back right would start to spin. Me and chums often completely shut down an intersection by filling it with thick, white smoke. Done in a parking lot, we’d apply Clorox to the back right and would screech away with flames coming off the tire.