OK, folks. These rants have been simmering in my head for a long time, so they may not have the pungency of fresh anger, but believe me, this shit can still put me in a spit-flying rage. It did yesterday…
Jaywalkers: OK, you pustule-ridden fartsuckers. When you cross the street while the green left-turn arrows are on, you know what happens? People turning left get stuck in the middle of the intersection because they don’t want to squash your worthless bodies to jelly. Why? I don’t know. They must have a respect for human life that you certainly don’t deserve. Then, when the lights change, all traffic must come to a halt so that the turns can be completed. This causes five or six extra cars to stack up per signal cycle. Which means I’m fucking stuck in traffic. Fuck you.
U.S. Postal Service, delivery vans, and clueless morons in general: Let me explain something to you, you worthless bags of diseased gall bladders. The reason there’s a sign that says NO STOPPING there is that if a car stops along that stretch of road, it blocks a lane that is meant for through traffic. When a lane is blocked, the people driving their cars in that lane need to merge into the next lane over. This means that the people already in that lane need to slow or even stop to let them in. This means I’m fucking stuck in traffic some more. Don’t fucking stop your vehicle in a No Stopping Zone! The sign does not say NO STOPPING UNLESS YOU ARE VERY IMPORTANT OR REALLY NEED TO!!! It’s just NO. STOPPING. Fuck you all twice! Hard!!
Other clueless morons in general: When a left turn lane fills up, don’t stop in the next lane over and point your car slightly to the left! You shit-eating vomit chunks! This is not the last left turn before the end of the earth! You can go straight and turn left at the next street! You can even go to the next street and turn right three times! In fact, I bet doing so would save you time! It would certainly save me time, because otherwise guess what! You’re blocking a through lane and I’m fucking stuck in traffic again! Fuck you three times! With a turnip!!!
So, here’s how my fucking commute goes: Driving down a big street which has four lanes: a median lane for left turns, a left lane for through traffic, a middle lane for through traffic, and a right lane along the curb (Which has TOW AWAY - NO STOPPING signs all along its length) for through traffic; the left lane is clogged because the median lanes are full because assholes are jaywalking and other assholes are blocking the left lane because they are waiting for space in the left turn lanes to become available , the middle lane is clogged because people are having to merge from the right lane to avoid being blocked in by assholes who stopped in the no stopping zone, and ordinary decent people who are just trying to get home are having to switch from the left lane to the middle lane to the right lane and back so they can get home at a decent hour and not have to sit in fucking traffic for a half hour on a FIVE MILE DRIVE!!!
Oh god - I’ll admit to working on Wolf Rd. For anyone who knows Albany, you know it’s a fun, commercial area to work that doesn’t have that inner-city feel to it and yet has plenty of things to do.
But for one month out of the year, it turns into hell. Yesterday it took me 20 minutes to get off of Wolf Rd and onto the highway, which is a 1.5 minute drive on a good day. People just clog up the traffic…they go through the light too early and get stuck in the intersection, they don’t go when they actually have room and sit behind the light, they try to take crazy-ass left turns into traffic, and don’t get me started on the minivans! Don’t know if they’re soccer moms or not, but if you can’t handle your oversized vehicle, why are you driving it?
I’d like to add a big jolly “fuck you” to all the holiday rubber neckers that are going to slow down traffic staring at wrecks on the shoulder and on the other side of the highway. I hope your Christmas lights short out and burn down your entire goddamn house.
My biggest issue this time of year is with people whose cars are broken down. Now, students + cars + -20/-30 weather will leave a few people stranded. That’s fine. But when there’s only 2 lanes going to the University, and someone has left their compact in the right lane mere feet from the beginning of a right turn lane where it would be out of everyone’s way, well… that makes me want to ask the bus driver to just give their heap a little nudge on the way by.
You know who else doesn’t get to stop in “No Stopping” Zones? Cabs. I understand that you’re trying to make a living, but if the address you’re picking up has a “No Stopping” Zone in front of it, it is JUST TOO FREAKIN’ BAD! You still can’t stop your cab there, with traffic piling up behind it.
Another driving thing that bothers me, but is completely legal, is people who park in what for all intents and purposes is a driving lane. There is a two-lane road here that virtually no one parks on, so everyone uses as a driving lane, but occasionally, ONE car will be parked in the lane. Nothing illegal about it, but it’s still annoying as heck.
Oh, and I just wanted to recommend “fartsucker” for the Straight Dope Cursing Hall of Fame.
Man, this is the reason I’m so glad I get Christmas vacation off at my Crossing Guard job. People are at their very worst around this time of year! :mad:
And to Mr. MORON who, to get the spot closest to the elevator in the JC Penney’s parking garage, sat waiting for someone to load, warm up, scrape off and get their huge truck ready to leave, YOU are the biggest idiot in the world.
Yeah, we know, we know, you’re the Prime Assistant to the “Emperor of the World” and as such, your time is way more valuable than that of the owners of the 20 cars backed up down the ramp and blocking off 6th avenue to through traffic.
(this guy was situated closely inside of the main entrance to the parking garage).
And thanks for making those of us who weren’t out gaily shopping for xmas presents, but who’d been working all day and just wanted to get home, sit there and WAIT for not only YOUR stupid ass, but all of those who’d been backed up waiting for YOU to move, to get by before we could back out and go home.
What really burned my butt, was that just up the next level, a 20 second walk from the elevators, were more than enough parking spaces.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRrr, that’s IT, I’m taking the bus for the remainder of this temp assignment.
If my left-turning ass isn’t sticking out into traffic at this light, it’ll be sticking out into traffic at the previous light, or the next one. Blame the goat-felching road designers who set up the turns from one major street to other major streets who only allow room for four cars in the turn lane, and blame the goat-felching traffic engineers who set the left-turn arrow so that only two of those cars get through the light each cycle.
Hey, good point. Those morons also engineered the traffic lanes so that only one car can fit in each lane, width-wise. Those assholes! If the lanes were two cars wide, I could get around your stupid traffic-blocking shitheap! Guess what, pal: If you can’t fit in the left turn lane because it’s already full to capacity, you’ll be waiting at least three traffic cycles. If you went to the next block and turned right, then right at the next block, then right at the next block, you’d be on the street you wanted, pointed in the direction you wanted to go, in the same amount of time or less! And as an added bonus, some other people, instead of being stuck behind you and your illegally-blocking-traffic garbage scow, would get to their destinations more easily! :wally
This is the one rant of yours that I too cannot agree on. I don’t know about others’ cities, but as this year’s model pointed out, what’s the difference whether you are blocking THIS light, or the last left light, or the one three lights up? And what if the person lives right OFF of the turn they’re trying to make, and trying “like a normal working person” to make it home after a long day JUST LIKE YOU???
Not everyone in traffic is some independently wealthy holiday shopper out to make our lives miserable. And in normal traffic situations, such as left turn lights that are too short to allow more than 2 people through the light at a time, that’s gonna be with us for a LONG time, not just holidays, but every rush hour.
And not every road in every city is designed so that you can simply turn right three times and end up at a perfect place to cross the road you were attempting to turn left across.
For instance, our city engineers have this LOVELY habit of having a street simply dead end, and picking up again somewhere else several blocks, or even a mile or two away, leaving hapless motorist to wander in mazelike neighborhoods for days.
Unless the roads you are taking are normally free and clear at every other time of the year, then you probably need to chalk this one up to normal rush hour conditions and not get so impaitent about it.
Never been on Arapahoe Road, have you, asswipe? There are eight traffic signals between Parker Road and I-25. The north side streets connect reasonably only three times, and the south side streets twice. Add in the two mile backup in the right lanes from people heading for I-25, and your right turn theory falls to shit in a hurry. Just fucking chill, will you? We’re all just trying to get home.
I originally thought you meant the real idiots - those who go to the front of a left turn (or right turn) lane with traffic backed up and cut in. :wally And while we’re at it, I’ll pit the spineless morons who let them, who leave three car lengths in front of them in stop and go traffic. The first set might learn their lesson if they either missed the turn because no one let them in, or sat there and got rear-ended enough times.
My point is you shouldn’t be blocking ANY lights. If the lane you want to use is all full, it is not OK to stop dead in a lane intended for through traffic and wait until the lane you want becomes available. If you do so, you are a dangerous asshole, because you are impeding the free flow of traffic. If your pipsqueak brain can’t imagine the possibility that there might be an alternative way to arrive at your destination that doesn’t force all the traffic to come to a grinding halt behind you, then by all means, blame it on those idiot city planners. However, I believe your license to drive should be revoked and shoved up your ass.
Also, I’m sorry I didn’t tailor my rant to fit every street in every city of every nation of the world. I am specifically pitting the moronic behavior that fucks up the traffic in my city. Deal.
[quote]
Jaywalkers: OK, you pustule-ridden fartsuckers. When you cross the street while the green left-turn arrows are on, you know what happens? People turning left get stuck in the middle of the intersection because they don’t want to squash your worthless bodies to jelly. Why? I don’t know. They must have a respect for human life that you certainly don’t deserve. Then, when the lights change, all traffic must come to a halt so that the turns can be completed. This causes five or six extra cars to stack up per signal cycle. Which means I’m fucking stuck in traffic. Fuck you.**
Hey, fuck yourself! Some fucknugget traffic engineers may have thought it was a swell idea to make the green turn signal for left turns happen at the same time as the walk signal for pedestrians ahem, Lincoln turning onto Colfax. When the hell else is a pedestrian supposed to go if they can’t go when the walk light says go?
OK. You win. I admit it’s not illegal to block traffic when you don’t have to. It’s just very very rude. OK?
Next up: the pit thread about traffic engineers. They’re so dumb a gibbon overdosed on Viagra could do a better job programming traffic signals.
Let me just say: If you are a pedestrian, and you are walking through a crosswalk towards a Walk signal, YOU ARE NOT JAYWALKING AND THIS RANT DOES NOT APPLY TO YOU!!!
I do have a question though: why don’t you just stay in the middle lane if the blockages are that consistent? Do you really gain anything from lane-hopping, or do the cars you passed go by you again?
The far right lane. This is a horrible lane, the worst of the three, because there are so many schmucks who park in this lane despite the Tow Away warning signs. There are also people exiting parking lots that stick their cars out into this lane and stop, waiting for traffic to let them in. At intersections, there is a third issue, which is people waiting for pedestrians to cross so they can turn right (which is a perfectly legitimate traffic situation. I’m not pitting this at all). It’s very difficult to get from this lane into the middle lane because, well, see below.
The middle lane. This is no good, mostly because there are people trying to get into this lane, sometimes from both sides. The people on the right are trying to get in because their lane is blocked by all the situations in 1. above, and the people on the left are trying to get in because their lane is blocked by the assholes waiting for their left turn lane to clear.
The left lane. This one is usually the smoothest because the only issues are the assholes trying to get into the left turn lane, so I tend to stay in this lane as long as I can.
Frequent lane-hopping is generally a poor strategy if you’re only doing it to get around slow drivers on city streets. Patience is key when you have people that are causing jams because they are driving more slowly than traffic conditions warrant. That’s because the traffic signals work to compress the cars in each lane together, and if one lane has fewer cars than another at a red light, cars will usually switch lanes to even things out. I often pass schmoes who do the lane-switch thing while I stay patiently behind my slowpoke, because I can see that there are only three cars (for example) between me and the next traffic signal, while schmoe just switched to a lane that has eight.
In the case where a lane is completely blocked due to a car that is not moving, however, the only sensible thing to do is switch lanes, provided you are not significantly impeding the progress of the cars in the adjacent lane. This is tricky at best, and pisses me off when I have to do it, especially when I can clearly see that the reason I’m fucked is that someone ahead of me decided that they were far too important to waste time on common courtesy, much less the obeying of traffic laws.
This sums up the flaw in the ‘everybody should be going the direction I’m going in’ attitude throughout this thread. Suppose they don’t know the area - how do they know that they’ll get three turns that will get them there? And, in the big scheme of things, will their 3-minute diversion really justify you not sitting behind them waiting to turn for 90 seconds?
But it’s not just me; it’s the people behind me, and the people behind them, and so on and so on all the way back into the last intersection I went through and beyond, sometimes for blocks. I don’t care if everyone’s not going the direction I’m going in. I realize everyone’s trying to get somewhere, and I have nothing against that. I even understand that at certain times of the day there is likely to be more traffic and that it will move slower. All I’m saying is that when people do the shit I described in my OP, they fuck it up for everyone and make traffic even worse than it needs to be. Is that so fucking unreasonable?