In you’re case he really should have realized that you were in park.
In Pittsburgh, the PL is executed with the assumption that the oncoming traffic is more-or-less a local vehicle. It may have begun as a guerilla left-arrow stolen-right-of-way maneuver, but it’s grown into a local custom now, as far as I can tell.
When I was growing up, Delaware and Pennsylvania cars did not have to have license plates on the front and rear bumpers; Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia, and New York did. What that meant to me was that when I (a Delaware driver) was at an intersection in Pittsburgh (PA) the oncoming drivers would not see a plate on my front bumper, and would assume that I was a local, and understood the Pittsburgh Left. They would then look shocked and dismayed when I went straight through the intersection leaving them half-stranded with their blinkers on. The car behind me would then stop and let them through because they were “owed” a Pittsburgh Left. It’s a common courtesy thing as near as I can tell, and when I’m in or near Pittsburgh, I do as the Romans – er, Steelers fans – do.
GO STILLERS!
And that would probably work out great if the whole world paused while you made your phone call. As you learned, it doesn’t. While you’re on the phone, someone could come up behind you. Someone could approach the intersection from another direction and wonder just what the heck you’re doing (btw, does your car have hazard lights?). The intersection could suddenly become busy. It behooves you to think ahead.
Unlike Uncommon Sense’s example where someone is doing something inconvenient, but legal, you doing something that is both inconvenient and illegal.
Ah, I see…thanks for the enlightenment!
…people here (DC area) do it just because they’re assholes, I reckon. 
If you do it while flipping off oncoming trafic, is it a New York Left?
And when we arrive at the same time, and you’re on the right, it means you should go first, not me.
And that flashing yellow light on the right front corner of my car? That means I want to turn into the driveway you are using the middle half of. It also means that I will be blocking traffic so that you can pull out. That means you’ll need to know how to control your car well enough that you can do that using only one lane…mmmmkay? And don’t flip me off when I honk at you so you will look up from your cell phone and recognize the problem YOU are causing. I know what that jesture means, and I wouldn’t even with a borrowed dick, stupid bitch.
Yep, that’s the one. I come from New England, where they also have them all over the place, so the signs make me laugh, too.
Here, the people going straight just get pissed off and pull a bit to the right and go around the car turning left to get through the intersection.
No, I don’t do that, I value my life.
A friend of mine will often scream, “Yield does not mean surrender, you IDIOT!!” at behaviour like this.
Another one.
If you are turning left into a parking lot, get your ass in the parking lot. Don’t stop leaving people backed up behind you in traffic. Figure out it you want to go to the grocery store or the liquor store first BEFORE you get in there. Then you can look for a parking space.
What’s even worse is the driver that is trying to turn left into a parking lot from a busy street, and they wave me out when I’m turning left.
Ummm… If you can’t turn in front of one lane of traffic, it’s real doubtful that I will be able to turn across two lanes of traffic.
So you did not effectively communicate with him. Unless your flashers are on and your hood is up, you need to follow the rules of the road. This is what we are talking about. You are distracted and had the ROW. For all the driver of the other car knew, you might be saying ‘hello’. Perhaps it’s someone from work, who knows.
Under certain circumstances it’s great to let someone else go when traffic is backed up. I do it plenty.
But if you have the ROW, and it’s safe, you go. No yacking on the cell phone. No waving me around you when you have a perfectly safe road ahead.
I can’t believe I didn’t think of this: Kiminy should have just turned his flashers on! That’s a perfectly well established rule of the road regarding how to communicate pretty much what he was trying to communicate!
-FrL-
Do we know each other? I’ve been known to scream this exact thing at people trying to merge onto Baltimore’s Beltway.
I don’t think we’ve met, but it’s possible. Does HOTCC mean anything to you?
Hands on throttle, collective, and cyclic? We’re not talking helicopters, Morgyn. Having hung out with both of you, you’d enjoy one another, methinks.
HOTCC… ahhhhhh, nope, I got nothing. What’s it mean?
It means we’ve likely never met. 
HOTCC = House of the Confused Cat, which is the household name of some friends of mine.
Oh, never mind, then.
Having spent yesterday driving to Philadelphia and back, I had plenty of time to see Traffic Fucktards in Action. I screamed, “Yield does not mean surrender, idiot!” and “You don’t go 45 in the fast lane, moron!” and “Turn signal, asswipe, turn signal!” many, many times.
It is a custom these days. The PL is typically executed when on a two lane road with each lane travelling in the opposite direction, and there is no left turn arrow or turning lane. When the first car in the lane opposing wishes to turn left (so indicated by left turn signal), the driver across (moi) notices that there are tons of cars behind her, therefore meaning that the opposing driver would probably be stuck at the light for quite a while since the people in my lane will squeeze as many cars through on the yellow as made possible by the laws of physics allows the left turning car to turn, thereby reducing the wait time for that car and everyone behind it.
Around here it is often known as the ‘courtesy left’ and is often assumed by drivers who have spent a significant number of years driving in the Pittsburgh area. The ‘courtesy left’ is extended to only the first car in the line. After the first car makes its courtesy left, everyone else proceeds as normal. I have never seen this maneuver in any other part of the country, where it is referred to as a ‘Pittsburgh Left’.
Pittsburgh in and of itself is a hard city to navigate with a car, particularly if you do not know the area well. The city today consists of what were formerly five towns that have been joined together. The streets of those five towns didn’t line up very well, so being geniuses of city planners, Pittsburghers just made them fit ‘da best we cud’. One way streets are common, but they do not alternate, so sometimes you’ve got to go four or five blocks past your destination to get a street going the direction you want to go. Oakland is a mess, with all its bad drivers and college student obliviots who think nothing of running from David Lawrence Hall to Towers across four lanes of traffic on a curve with no crosswalk in hoardes (I guess the cars can only take out so many at a time - can’t explain this behavior nor why I did it when I went to Pitt), and a downtown section that is triangle shaped. Grant Street basically ends at the Federal building, where Liberty Ave comes in from the left and then goes on up to Bloomfield, so there’s always a fuckton of idiots sitting there at the light wondering what the hell happened to Grant. Streets barely large enough for two cars to pass in oppsite directions (with no center line) are routinely used by PAT buses, which leads to a lot of interesting close calls. And don’t get me started on Fifth Ave. with the bus lane going opposite the four lanes of traffic headed from Oakland to Downtown. More than once I’ve screamed at a moron driving the wrong way down the bus lane who was about to get acquainted with the 61C. Or the people who think that it’s necessary to slam on the brakes and crawl 10 mph as soon as they encounter a tunnel. Only one of the three major tunnels into Pittsburgh has a stoplight at the end of it (Liberty Tubes) and that’s pretty bleeding obvious as there’s a stoplight before you go in, and in fact all the way up Route 19 from the South Hills. Yet every day, some fucking moron feels that when headed toward Monroeville through the Squirrel Hill Tunnel, it is necessary to drop from 60 mph to 10 mph in bumper to bumper traffic. Great idea. So was the Squirrel Hill interchange off the Parkway East, but I think this post is long enough.
Days you make it to work alive are good drivin days in Pittsburgh.
#1.
To the gentleman in the car to my right,
I know the bitch in the pickup blocked the intersection for our entire green light. I was there too, remember? I know that it’s taking a long time to get through the intersection because of backups and Pickup Bitches blocking it. However, missing the green light does not mean you get to bull your way through ten seconds after the light turns red. Those people whose lives your endangering? They are not Pickup Bitch. They didn’t do anything wrong.
#2.
To the nice people turning left out of Dierberg’s,
See the sign hanging on the traffic light across the street? It says “Left turn yield on green”. I know these things are sometimes hard to understand. Let me decode it for you: it means (pay attention now, this is tricky) “Left turn yield on green”.
You may now return to your regularly scheduled ignoring of said sign while you shoot me dirty looks for having the bold audacity to go straight.
Oh THANK YOU! That is THE worst pet peeve, imho. And the inverse, people who try to “help you” when you’re merging onto the highway.
NOOOOO NOO, do NOT slow down to let me in, I had my speed all adjusted to get into the right spot, as I’m supposed to do, you just messed things up for me, and all the other drivers behind me trying to get on!!
GAAAAAAAAAAAH
I hate idiots.
He he…
Well, I have to disagree with you there, but mostly in jest. “Trainwreck”, my beloved 1979 Cadillac (I owned in the 90s) generated much respect in 99% of the other drivers seeing her anywhere in their vicinity.
I never got into any accidents with her, but her former owner had, and it/they were biggies. The entire driver’s door looked as if a freight train had hit it (hence my car’s nickname). But being a wellbuilt caddy, it still opened perfectly and the window still worked just fine. It wasn’t quite as soundproof as the other one, but pretty good.
There were other mysterious dents and issues with Trainwreck’s looks as well.
Funny, no one ever argued with me when I was driving ole Trainwreck, they generally gave her a wide berth and all the right of way I wanted, whether I deserved it or not.