Easy, make a left turn then go up a block or two and make a U-turn, then proceed to go straight through on the next green light, ergo, right turn.
Sometimes you have to go out of your way to keep the flow of traffic convenient for everyone.
I didn’t even beep. The ass-strapped rocket idea was wholly a thought - no actions were taken. And it wouldn’t be a minute or two difference for me. If I have to wait through two cycles of the light, that’s more like 5 minutes. I actually avoid that intersection now by cutting over a couple of blocks and then cutting back over on the other side of the intersection. There is always about 30-50 cars lined up to go through and the odds that someone will make a left turn is high. I am surprised that I am usually the only person to circumnavigate the mess. Most others will just sit and wait for the asshats to clear the intersection. The thing is, here, the intersection and the left turn are avoidable, yet everyone just sits there and waits…
First off, common sense dictates that you must be polite and do the right thing when driving, I do.
Common sense also dictates that you won’t get killed by taking a slightly more ‘less obstructive’ route, one that causes as little traffic problems as necessary.
Now, if you have absolutely no other choice but to make that obstructive left (right) turn then those in charge of that construction should be aware of this and should have allowed provisions. That or put up a ‘No Right Turn’ sign.
Life really is simpler then some let on to believe.
You can clearly see that there are routes around the construction.
The red circle is the intersection in question and the purple line is the route I take to aviod it. Simple really, but most will never figure this out. Top photo, you may have to zoom to see…
Hold on. Whas that directed at me? Ha, the joker that takes up the whole intersection with 50 cars behind him isn’t having a case of ‘The World Revolves Around Me’??
Funny, that.
If I don’t turn right I end up on the motorway heading wayyyyyyyy more south then anyone’s momentary inconvience is worth, perhaps there is a turn off I could take before this one but I should take a turn off that will make my trip 10-15 minutes longer to save some impatient bastard 1 maybe 2 minutes? Sometimes impatient bastards have to realise that we are all just trying to get home. Not all intersections have ever so handy escape routes. The majority of people don’t sit in traffic because they enjoy it or because they enjoy pissing you off.
Please feel free to come and tell my council how things should work because they are absolutely incapable of doing anything sensible themselves. I could complain but I just want to get to work and get home. I expect road works to be annoying from time to time but I also expect people to act like adults when that happens. Tantrums are for 2 yr olds not adults. Impatient wankers cause accidents.
Absolutely! Simpler does not always mean faster though.
You want people to “make a left turn then go up a block or two and make a U-turn, then proceed to go straight through on the next green light, ergo, right turn”. And the reason you want them to do this is not to make YOUR commute faster, it’s to make THEIR commute faster.
You don’t go around the congestion to make YOUR commute faster, you do it to make everyone else’s commute faster.
You’re a regular Mother Theresa, you is.
Here’s a newsflash. Construction causes congestion. Yes, if everyone took alternate routes, it would lessen the congestion. And I’m sure cause other problems that could be solved if only someone would think of the Uncommon Sense!!!
I understand, except the part about “bicycle lanes.” Do you mean that cindery part of the road to the right of the white line, where the sawgrass and thistles grow?
I very seldom actually stop at a stop sign anyway. I ususally slow down and backpedal until the intersection is clear, and then ride through.
Yeah, Kiminy, the problem is, other people can’t read your mind. What seems obvious to you about a traffic situation may well not be obvious to them, and if they are responsible, they will follow the set rules rather than make judgments as to whether you are in posession of info they are not or not.
I’m not really following your discussion here, so I’m not piping up in defense of your interlocutor. I’m just posting a “say what?” because I don’t understand what you just said here.
I know I sometimes try to find a way around congested traffic in order to get where I’m going more quickly. (More often, though, I just turn on the radio and A/C and enjoy my mini-vacation.)
I can’t figure out why you’ve said no one does this. It seems like an obvious and plausible thing for people to do.
I’d think that should be a shared liability. (Do they have that here in the states?) The waver shouldnt’ have waved, and the wavee shouldn’t have paid attention to the wave.
scratches head
It would make both of our commutes faster. The left turner wouldn’t have to wait 3 minutes for the light to turn yellow before they are able to turn (left turners are NOT given any priority by the oncoming traffic). How long does it take to circumnavigate that interstection judging by the map? Couple minutes? There, that’s the length of time the turner is stuck at the light. And if they’re the first car at the light and they want to turn left, no-one else behind them gets through that intersection. Nobody. There isn’t room to pass on the right, what with the barricades and construction and all.
I’m done with calm kiwi’s case, hers is definitely a special case. If I were backed up behind her I would not get upset, it is what it is (her traffic scenario).
Now you’re catching on…
That’s sweet of you to say.
Ta-DAH!!!
Seriously, the only people that should be thinking ahead are the ones that KNOW that their manuever will cause additional backups. Dante, if there are three entrances to the HomeDepot (you have to go there for some reason) and you can just as easily enter the parking lot from any of the three, with me? Do you pick the one that is most convenient for you, or the one that is the least likely to cause some kind of traffic problem (I could go into details if you like, but try to use your imagination here)?
I suspect you would use the one that causes the least amount of ‘problems’, right?, putting your immediate convenience aside for the moment.
The same could be said about an easily avoidable left turn encounter.
Just being sarcastic. It is an obvious thing to do for yourself, but Uncommon Sense seems to think that everyone should be doing it not for their own benefit, but for the benefit of others. Or, specifically, him. Or her. Whatever.
Well, I just went forward in time and it turns out that after 7 pages of discussion, with various scenarios offered by both sides (all specifically designed to bolster our own arguments), Uncommon Sense and I failed to reach an agreement!
:shock: :dismay: :confusion:
So I’m going to go ahead and just agree to disagree, and watch the time-space continuum collapse in on itself. Enjoy the show!
Nope.
Car 1 was there first, needs to make left turn in front of the car that was there second. The third car to arrive on the scene has a clear shot for his left turn as the first car blocks the second car from going. Third car could wait for the first car to clear the intersection, then for the second car to go and then make his left turn, but what’s the harm if car three goes while car two is being blocked by car one?
Really? Seven pages? That is sooooo unlike me. Shame on me for such behavior!!
I don’t know why drivers trying to figure out routes that make it easier on other drivers (and usually themselves) would be so foreign to people. Especially during times when one simple pre-thought out manuever could relsult in a dramatic increase in the traffic flow for everyone else.
You’re right, agree to disagree I guess.
I don’t assume that people will read my mind. However, I do adapt to different situations.
The cell phone example: this is a very quiet neighborhood intersection, without much traffic. The streets are narrow, so there is not much difference between pulling over to the side of the street to make the call, or making a stop at the stop sign for the 15 seconds it took to make my call. When I stopped, there was no visible traffic approaching in any direction. I would not have done this if there had been anyone behind me, nor would I have done it if it had been a busier intersection. If the driver I wanted to wave through chose to wait rather than assume that I really did mean that he could go on when I waved at him, I guess he was trying to read my mind rather than what I was actually trying to communicate with him.
Lesson learned, though. Next time, I will definitely drive through an intersection while yakking on my cell phone rather than run the risk of making someone else feel like he was breaking the law or something.
I think if we could just show diagrams that look like those Driver Improvement class visual aids or something, it’s be a lot easier. Anyway, I propose the following:
If you’re in a two lane road turning left against traffic during rush hour*, it would be nice if you tried to mitigate your (negative) effect on traffic flow, if possible, by scrunching over to the left to allow cars to pass on the right, going a block further where there’s a turn lane and circling the block, turning right and doing a U-Turn, etc. Due to the vagaries of place and time and construction, this isn’t always possible or safe, in which case:
The drivers behind the left-turner need to chill the FUCK out. If that particular intersection is causing significant delays, do you civic duty and report it to the proper authorities, with profanity excluded, for now.
*For purposes of this discussion, I’m using the drive-on-the-right protocol. Please swap left and right as needed.
What seems obvious to you about a traffic situation may well not be obvious to them, and if they are responsible, they will follow the set rules rather than make judgments as to whether you are in posession of info they are not or not.