You’re expecting them to mind-read everybody for several blocks?
And anyway, as was noted by someone else, you’re just suggesting that instead of blocking this junction, they block the next juction, and the next and etc.
(The obvious solution is to build roundabouts, but Americans seem terrified of and road that doesn’t function along straight lines…)
And if you arrive home to your subdivision, and the guy ahead of you has the utter AUDACITY to stop and turn left into his driveway, do you consider HIM a, what was it?, pipsqueak brain because he didn’t go to the end of the cul-de-sac and do the roundabout, then come back at his driveway from the right, JUST so as not to impede YOU for those 2 extra seconds?
Has it even remotely occured to you that many of those in the far left lane approaching the turn lane, have driven that particular route MANY Times, and not only aren’t “held up” but are waiting their turn at the turn lane? Or that the ones who are REALLY the brainless pipsqueaks are the ones who see this EVERY BLASTED RUSH HOUR, and yet are still surprised and annoyed to see GASP Rush hour conditions, By GOSH, who’da thunk it? At 5pm? Traffic is back up waiting for the turn lane AGAIN? You ever maybel…oh, I DUNNO, YOU be the one to use an alternative route, one without problem left lanes?
Good grief, been out in the workaday world long? This IS life son, traffic backs up, the roads have too many cars, and all wanting to get to the same place at the same time. Do you pit those who back up the right turning lanes as well? Maybe THEY should all go turn left three times so they won’t be in your way. BrU-U-ther.
And who determines who “has to” or whose “has to” is the TRUE “has to” that is allowed to wait to turn left at the road they actually NEED to turn on rather than drive three miles out of their way?
And like I said in my previous post, at least in my 30 some odd years of driving, those who are supposedly “stuck behind” all those trying to get into the left lane, are THEMSELVES well aware of this particular (or these particular) turn lanes’ problems at rush hour, and are merely waiting their turn at it. If the left lane is backed up (as is common for other lanes than the left lane during rush hour), then use the CENTER or second lanes, sheesh, what a concept eh?
It’s called waiting your turn and having patience beyond that of a 2 year old. It’s also known as RUSH HOUR (yeah a misnomer). And yeah, traffic engineers can be pretty pathetic, but it’s not all them, or “rude” people (who are merely trying to get home, just like you), but the fact that a lot of our road systems are just too overcrowded.
No, as we said earlier, other than the left turn thing, we’re behind you. It’s your left turn prejudice and the “; 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” confusion you display.
Well DuH this happens. Haven’t you ever been grocery shopping? Sometimes there are 400 people in the store, trust me I HATE the hold up, but i’m NO more important than any of the other 15 people waiting to get to the 98% fat free burger. There IS only enough room at these intersections for a certain amount of people, most of us, though annoyed and wanting to get home JUST as much as you, understand, and accept that we just have to wait our turn.
And yes, asking people to go several blocks out of their way (and if everyone did THAT, as someone else mentioned, it would do no good anyway, as it’s just going to be the same thing at the next intersection), JUST to avoid “holding up” people not going the same way they are.
So, do YOU drive several blocks out of your way? How bout if the right turn lane is the one clogged, do you drive way out of your way and make three LEFT turns?
No, on this one you’re being unreasonable and nonsensically impatient.
Yes, I prefer to drive several blocks out of my way rather than hold up traffic when I don’t have to.
If the right lane is clogged, I don’t have to make three left turns. I just have to go to the next block, make a right turn, go a block, make another right turn, go a block and make a left turn. That’s two right turns and one left, and I’m block ahead at that point. In some situations in my area it even saves time to do so.
Having lived in Los Angeles nearly all my life, I’ve learned many things about traffic. The most important thing I learned is that if everyone used common sense and courtesy towards others, there would be far less traffic congestion than there currently is.
I just don’t think I could sit there, the lane ahead of me as clear as my conscience, traffic piling up behind me, horns blaring, and think “Aw, fuck you, buddy. I’ve got a right to stop here. Go yell at the stupid traffic engineers who forced me to do this to ya. I’ve just gotta turn left up ahead, and that’s all there is to it.”
YMMV. Heh.
Well, it’s nice that you live where the road configuration is such that you CAN do that. As for the “traffic piling up behind you, horns blaring blah, blah, blah” you apparently ignored the part about generally, people who are familiar with the routes in their town, and familiar with the traffic patterns and routes, generally are NOT going to behave this way. The one person who is impatient as a two year old and huffily drives several blocks out of his way to supposedly “be considerate” is the exception rather than the rule.
And you STILL haven’t answered several of our points and questions.
For instance, HOW does this save anyone time or traffic clogging when even IF they go several blocks further, the left turn lanes along that ENTIRE stretch of road are going to be the same regarding having to wait for the light, and traffic backing up???
By your reasoning, jeez, how 'bout if we all just stay home, then when you’re All done with your much more important life, THEN we’ll go out and do our petty little stuff, you know, to make sure we’re not holding anyone up.
Ah! One of my biggest pet peeves, the traffic island. What a job security scam for cities.
Instead of using the device of the wide center lane allowing as many people as need to turn left to get out of through traffic, let’s waste concrete on raised islands that have only about 3 car-lengths’ cuts at a given intersection.
Later, let’s bust these islands up to allow for two more car lengths’ cuts. Do the job half-way, then surround the mess in cones and barricades for weeks on end before finishing.
Later, when 5 lengths prove inadequate yet, inconvenience the public by adding another 2 car lengths.
Repeat until the public can’t take it any more and blame THEM for the rage that YOU’ve created.
I just wanted to add to this rant, if I may:
That space between my car & the car in front of me does NOT have a bright flashing neon sign over it saying “DUMBASS PARKING HERE”. I managed to get in line a mile ahead of the offramp, you can learn to do the same.
It is not your God-given birthright to be in this lane. Please do not attempt to merge overtop of me without signalling and assume I will slow down to let you in. I won’t.
Please do not pass me on the right only to squeeze your shitbox into single-car-length space available between me & the car in front of me. You’re not getting there any faster, dummy. You’re just pissing me off. Not very nice of you. We’re all going the same speed.
I did answer this. Once they’ve gone past the intersection where they wanted to turn right, they can make three right turns and end up at the same place, if the next left turn ahead is also full.
Answer points and questions? hmmm…
“You’re expecting them to mind-read everybody for several blocks?”
No. I’m pretty sure that’s impossible, not to mention unnecessary.
“And if you arrive home to your subdivision, and the guy ahead of you has the utter AUDACITY to stop and turn left into his driveway, do you consider HIM a, what was it?, pipsqueak brain because he didn’t go to the end of the cul-de-sac and do the roundabout, then come back at his driveway from the right, JUST so as not to impede YOU for those 2 extra seconds?”
If I’m on a single-lane road, then the correct use of that lane includes making left turns. I understand this and I can handle it.
“Has it even remotely occured to you that many of those in the far left lane approaching the turn lane, have driven that particular route MANY Times, and not only aren’t ‘held up’ but are waiting their turn at the turn lane?”
Yes. I don’t like any of those people.
“Good grief, been out in the workaday world long?”
13 years.
“Haven’t you ever been grocery shopping?”
Yes. Weekly.
Did I miss any?
.
Hey, I have a roundabout in my town, and it works just fine. Less accidents (none for a long time, I think) there than at the light 1/4 of a mile up.
Here is your key phrase.
You are only counting in people who know the area. In Albany alone, we could never pull the “three rights and you’re back on the same road” crap, because nearly every other street is a one-way. And streets change names randomly it seems.
I’ve lived in Albany ten years, and if I have to go downtown, I still follow the route that I’ve laid out for myself. I have very little sense of direction*, and I refuse to try to make a big giant circle to please you! And possibly get lost!
*Thank Og for the river - it’s always east for me.
Here in Boston, there are no street signs. Streets come & go at random, in wild directions. Far too many are one-way. And sometimes, they change direction. IE, a street that was north only last night might be south only today.
Hey, it’s happened (thanks, Big Dig engineers!).
If you live in a city where you can make three rights & have a reasonable expectation that you’re heading where you want to go…well, bully for you I guess.
But that doesn’t happen here. If you make 3 rights instead of a left, you might never be able to get back. When I hear the classic “You can’t get there from here” in Boston, I believe it. Sometimes you can’t.
This left turn rant definately seems unreasonable to me. If we’re talking about a congested part of the city, I think in the long term asking people to drive for longer distances just created more problems.
Also, what about the person who is going straight in the left hand lane, who ends up positioned so they block people from entering the left turn lane, which is free and clear with a lovely green arrow? Should they be obligated to change lanes and turn left so they don’t block the turning lane?
Traffic congestion happens. Deal with it.
Personally, I would pit the dumbasses turning into shopping centers and stopping at what they see as a four way stop. Normally this intersection has a stop sign on the three parking lot roadways, and no stop sign on the roadway connecting to the street. It seems obvious that this is there to prevent traffic backing out onto the street, but everyone stops there and lets other people through! Follow the signs, dammit!
Well apparently your town is just chock full of places off of main stretches where this is possible, close and convenient, not so with a LOT of places do not.
Most of the main drags in my town don’t, and not only don’t, but there ARE no right turns off of the main drag on which to turn three times and cross your original path.
An intersection at two of our roads called Dimond (yes, spelled that way, it’s someone’s name) and New Seward. There is a turn lane going on to New Seward from Dimond that leads under the overpass, even during non rush hours this left lane, and the lane next to it (a straight through lane) are frequently backed up with people waiting to get into the left turn lane. In order to turn right here, you’d be going onto the on ramp for the New Seward, along the New Seward Highway for about three miles, and then have to end up in the off ramp line to O’Malley before you could then turn right on Old Seward, only to end up BACK at Dimond, the ONLY place that actually crosses New Seward.
Tudor and Lake Otis is another of these intersections, neither is a highway, but there are NO right turns off of this road between the highway and Lake Otis that go back out onto any cross streets of Lake Otis, they’re all either businesses, or neighborhoods that end, or only direct you back to where you came from.
And again, you didn’t answer the comment of “most people know that this is a NORMAL, COMMON part of driving and no one ‘honks and carries on’ when waiting as you seem to think that they do” part of my previousi post.
Well, that’s what YOU’RE doing, you’re imagining you can read their minds, and deciding FOR them whether they really have the need, or right to wait their turn (as everyone else out in the workaday world, except you, manages to do with little angst on their part) in line for the left turn lane.
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They are behaving NORMALLY, were they to do as YOU suggest, it would create the same EXACT problem, only at the next light, or the light after, as we’ve told you repeatedly. Not to mention, as I’ve said above, apparently YOUR city is the only one with easily conveniently located roads to allow three right turns and across the same road close to the intersections you’re trying to cross.
It’s exceedingly illogical to expect everyone to go out of their way, or to go to other intersections since, if they do that, they’ll be creating the SAME SITUATION only further down the street.
A perfect example:
I’m sure you’ve been in construction zones where they’ve detoured traffic through a nearby residential area. Well, HELLO? every car that WOULD have been waiting for the light, or going through the intersection is now slowly slogging through that residential area, now clogging IT up.
Thats’ exactly what would happen if, as you insist, everyone would just “go to the next light” or “make three rights to cross the street at a different part of the road”. If EVERYONE did it, then THOSE roads would be just as slow and clogged up as the situation you’re now pitting.
(and to those who laugh at my coding, I KNOW, I KNOW weirddave gave me the coding for quotes in quotes, but it’s home on my home computer, and I can’t save to a word doc library here like I would at home, since it’s only a temp job… So…sorry :))
Sorry, not the only place, but the CLOSEST and only place in the Dimond area, there are other cross streets a few miles north and south of dimond.
I “seem to think that they do?”. I suppose I could be delusional, but if not, then in my city, people honk and carry on when cars are obstructing the free flow of traffic. I guess in your city, there is only one route to each and every destination, everyone accepts this, and no one gets upset about it. Unless, of course, it’s a parking lot where someone is waiting for a particular spot instead of going out of their way to find another spot in a different part of the lot. Then it’s the end of the world.
No, I’m actually saying NO ONE should be allowed to stop their car in a lane that is intended for through traffic only so that they can get into a different lane when there are alternative courses of action available to them.
Obviously, I disagree.
Since I was ranting about conditions and behaviour in my particular city, I see no reason to retract it simply because other cities do not share the same characteristics.
There was no ‘rest of the grocery shopping question’. Here is the entirety of the quote:
“Haven’t you ever been grocery shopping? Sometimes there are 400 people in the store, trust me I HATE the hold up, but i’m NO more important than any of the other 15 people waiting to get to the 98% fat free burger.”
What’s the rest of the question? Are you asking me if I hate the hold up? Are you asking me to confirm that sometimes there are 400 people in the store? Are you asking me if I I’m more important than the other 15 people waiting?
I’m not saying don’t wait your turn. I’m saying don’t block the progress of others needlessly. You want to talk grocery shopping? Fine. When you’re in line to checkout, do you stand where you are blocking the paths of people who are still shopping?
I still disagree. I’m not saying that everyone should forsake this particular left turn and go to the next one, I’m just saying the overflow shouldn’t hang out in the through lane. I’m not saying everyone should stay home so I can drive at top speed all the way from work to home. I’m just saying that if people would be more flexible, instead of stubbornly clinging to the one way they know, then instead of having huge, snarled clumps of traffic every few blocks, there would be smoother sailing for everyone.
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If that’s true, it’s a serious screw up. You really should call the Planning Dept. or whoever’s in charge of that. They can’t possibly have intended for it to be that way.
Thread summary;
Everyone else should get off the road. They are in my way.
All other drivers are selfish and stupid.
I know more about traffic management than the professionals paid to know about it.
Anything I’ve missed?
Lincoln & Colfax is one of the busiest intersections in town. Lincoln is one way, five lanes wide, and left turning vehicles are supposed to yield to pedestrians. Ha ha. The only way to make it safe would be to have all the ped lights lit while no traffic is going anywhere. Ha ha again. Might happen if the city ever gets hit with a big enough lawsuit, but not 'till then.
Alright. Normally, I do all my Christmas shopping well in advance. As this was the first day since I got home from Tech that I wasn’t woken up by one of my random friends and/or Carly, today was designated my shopping day. (That is, my friends didn’t get a hold of me until an hour after I woke up today.)
So, went to Patrick Henry Mall with no problems. Got my stuff with no problems. Got back to the car.
First, there was a long, long line of static cars leading towards the turn out of the mall taking up about .75 of the parking lot road, perpindicular to how I was parked. After a 7-point turn or so, I was in line with them, but facing the wrong direction. Another seven points later, and I had taken my place in line.
Now, as we were advancing at a rate of about a foot a minute, people from other lanes kept creeping in ahead of us. Some of the drivers were polite* and let people in. Others just weren’t paying attention and cars from the lanes perpindicular to us bull their way in.
Two incidents of note:
First, there was a big-ass truck, jacked up so high that its bumper was level with my windshield. As I said, there was about .25 of the road left that wasn’t in our line, and he was in one of the rows perpindicular to the line. He creeped out until he was blocking it, and continued creeping, trying to get into the line. However, even the old lady on the cell phone was offended by his behavior, and we all closed up with less than a foot between our bumpers. My friend waved merrily as we drove in front of him, but I think he was too high up to see. Eventually, someone let him through (not into) the line, and he drove over the median, nearly hit another car, and pealed off for about 10 feet before getting stuck in traffic again.
This was the minor incident.
The major incident again involved the leftover space in the road. One of the cars way back in the line noted that the old lady in front of us did let people through, and pulled out of line, drove up the extra space, and stopped next to and just in front of my car. She than began trying to edge her way in front of the old lady in front of me. People being who they are, a fair number of the drivers in the line followed her example and two lines of cars quickly formed. At this point, my friend took his book, hopped out of the car, stood in front of the interloper’s car, and resumed reading. Slowly, my line edged forward. The woman in the other car shouted abuse at my friend, who replied, “That’s nice, ma’am.”. We continued to inch forward. The shouting woman told my friend that she had a gun. Again, my friend replied that this was nice, and resumed reading. The woman told my friend that she had called the police, and they were coming to arrest him. My friend replied that due to the woman’s manuver, the police would not be able to get into the parking lot to arrest him, and furthermore that if she actually did have a gun-
At this point the woman confirmed this by pointing said gun at my friend. My friend got back into my car at this time.
An hour or so after I performed my first seven-point turn, we left the parking lot.
So, that was my Christmas shopping experience. Happy holidays, everyone.