Hey you! Yes you, in the shitty little Sante Fe! Can’t you see that your holding up traffic? Can’t you see that your little right turn exit thingy HAS ITS OWN FUCKING LANE?!? What the fuck is wrong with you?? You don’t even have to merge! Maybe it’s for the best, though, since a half mile later this Ram might have cut you off if you’d have just gone. Well, except that you would have been ahead of the Ram if you’d just gone.
Every. Fucking. Day. there’s some drooling imbecile sitting there backing traffic up halfway down 51st St because there’s scaaaaaaary through-traffic in the next lane that’s just waiting to pounce on you if you pull out in your own fucking lane. Oh wait. No, they just stay in their own lane. We need to petition city council to install a life-size version of that toy car racetrack with spinning wheels in the walls of the track that accelerated the cars. Zoom! Or maybe just a robot with a laser that shoots cars that stop.
So imagine my surprise when I go to Google Street View to illustrate my rant and there’s some fucking moron exhibiting exactly that behaviour. Fuckhead. True to form, if you continue south he immediately cuts over two lanes to the left, and tailgates the guy in front of him. Does anyone know if I can get TOW missile launchers as an option for my Fit?
Yes this is one my route home from work, why do you ask?
I was talking to a friend about this last year. Below is a picture of an intersection near Safeco Field in Seattle. I used to drive through there every day, indicated by the red arrow in my picture, and nearly every day some moron would be stopped exactly as you described. If I honked my horn, they’d either flip me off or put their hands up like they have no clue.
I haven’t been to either intersection in question, but I tend to cut some slack to cautious drivers like that. I’ve seen cases where through traffic has changed lanes into areas where the incoming traffic should be coming up to speed and merging. The person at the intersection is the ultimate judge of when they think it’s safe to pull into traffic. If you’re behind them, deal with it.
But they’re not pulling into traffic - they’re driving in their own lane that continues on around the corner. I feel your rant, Gorsnak - that drives me nuts here, too. It’s bad enough when you get drivers who come to a screeching halt at the end of a merge lane, but that isn’t a merge lane - it’s their own damned lane. If they can’t handle having to merge into traffic in a block or so, they shouldn’t be driving.
I dunno; I can drive in my own lane and keep an eye on people beside me just fine. I don’t hold up traffic by not driving in my lane because some hypothetical person might possibly come over.
This might be a geographical difference, but I often find myself stopping at these exchanges and then smacking myself in the head realizing it was my lane to take.
I live in Nassau County, NY 2 miles from the border of NYC. Traffic will be flowing on the parkways at 60-70, but when you exit it can come to a dead stop. Unless I’ve traveled that road a few times, I drive cautiously (as there are no signs to let me know). But I’m aware things are different in Saskatchewan and Alberta.
If it was around here it wouldn’t be that they’re cautious, it would be that they’d gotten into the wrong lane to start with and are trying to figure out how to zoom across all three lanes to make a left. But since the OP seems to be from Canada I’ll go with overly cautious/doesn’t know how to drive.
You’re only saying that because you’re in Boston*, where drivers don’t feel compelled to obey any laws, including the laws of physics.
In my experience the rest of the country isn’t as anarchic.
To me, how egregious this behavior is depends on how the signage is. In some situations like that, the signs make it look like you only have a little merging lane, not a real lane that actually continues, and it’s damn near impossible to see which is which as you round a corner at speed. Other places don’t a have friggin’ sign at all, which I really hate; you’re not expecting to have your own lane, so you’re trying to watch the cars approaching in the other lanes and merge, but the angle is so sharp that you can’t really judge distance and speed very easily and it just generally takes a bit to sort things out and move on. In that sort of situation, the problem isn’t that the person sitting at the corner can’t drive, it’s that they’re not psychic.
But in situations where the signs are numerous and unambiguous, I say we string the fuckers up.
Well, the signage could be improved, but this happens most frequently during afternoon rush hour. The logical conclusion is that the drivers who are stopping are mostly people who drive the route every day. No excuses there. Usually the guys who are stopped will immediately pull to the far left lane, and then turn left into the mall about a quarter mile down the road. As, indeed, the Sante Fe in Google Street View does if you follow him south. But there’s lots enough time to make those lane changes, and even if by some weird circumstance it’s impossible to make them you can turn left onto Primrose and get into the mall from that side - which is where the Safeway is, the likely destination of people stopping at the mall on their way home from work.
What we need is a couple signs and barriers like this, ironically for turning right onto the very same street, albeit in the other direction.
I’ve been thinking about doing a rant on this exact issue!
There’s a similar-type intersection here, where the right turn lane slowly curves into its very own lane on the next street. In my case, there’s even an arrow-shaped traffic light, and even when it’s green, people will stop in the middle of the turn, look around dumbfounded, and then continue on. In their own lane. Through their own green light. ARGH!
We have a similar intersection on my way to work. Every day without fail, a car in front of me will come to a complete stop (right at the enormous, unmissable “KEEP MOVING” sign) and remain parked there until all the traffic in the other discrete lanes has passed by. I wonder if adding “YES, THIS MEANS YOU, ASSHOLE” to the bottom of the sign would help.
Around Pittsburgh we have a bunch of tunnels. Some people (for some reason) slow down for tunnels. Traffic nightmares result. So, PennDot places Maintain Speed Through Tunnel signage. Which the slowpokes ignore.
I often contemplate ramming the back end of the doofus creeping through the tunnel. Would my argument, “I was just following the signage” prevail in court?
Every morning when I take a particular road (about twice a week), there are people stopped in the right turn lane waiting for people to finish turning left from the other direction.
NO!
You have the right of way, dumbass. The people turning left are supposed to be waiting for YOU. Fucking turn the corner already and stop sitting there waiting for all of them to finish turning.
Because you know what? Once that light changes, there are 8 billion cars coming the other way and none of us will be able to turn and merge AT ALL until they go by. Then we’ll have to wait for you or some other clueless fuck to wave through all the left turners again.
As a candidate World Emperor, I fully endorse the use of space based weapons platforms against two left turners coming from opposite directions who, rather than simply turning and going about their day, sit there opposite each other refusing to move until the other car moves.
Are you me? I drive that situation every stinking day I go to work. And at least once or twice a week there is someone at a dead stop for minutes on end, far beyond what any sane driver would think is necessary. OMG, there’s another car somewhere on the road that might switch two lanes over into mine!
