- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
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This PSA brought to you by several would-be assassins who tried to wave me in front of speeding cars in the last month and who will have to try harder next time.
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2x this if you’re cycling and a driver waves you through
Ugh, I hate this. I don’t care about waiting. As a cyclist, all I want is for it to be really clear what people are doing. Anything that messes with the right of way is sketchy.
People try to wave me on all the time. They refuse to move until I go. I refuse to go until I can fucking see what might fucking kill me. Twice, the guy waving me on has been rear-ended by a vehicle three times their size.
is Randall on Lemmy?
I see this and worse daily here and I rarely drive.
I’ve seen this exact scenario but the “polite” person is in a normal lane, not a turning lane. I hate drivers here.
Yesterday, by an accident, I made such a “generous” gesture. Thank god they did not use it.
Runner up is the assassin that seizes the traffic circle, instigating collisions behind them, just to let someone in out of turn. Only their MO is to delay or prevent a destiny altering meeting of some kind; an advanced tactic.
This applies when you’re a pedestrian waiting to cross too. There are always those drivers who think they’re doing you a favor by stopping one of the lanes of traffic so you can walk out into the other. They smile and wave and look baffled when you don’t take the bait.
Oh god, this reminds me of a cringe mistake just after I was getting my license. I was driving up to a crosswalk and there was a kid standing next to, maybe 8 or 9, holding their hand out. You know, just like they learn at school that they should do that to make it clear they want to cross even tho the car is supposed to stop anyway. I saw this and what did I do? I thought the kid waved at me and my new license, so I just drove past and waved back. What the fuck, brain?
Feels like at least part of the issue is multi-lane pedestrian crossings. Most of the time that should either be single-lane, a traffic light or a tunnel/bridge.
In an uncontrolled crossing the pedestrian always has the right of way (North America and Europe at least). They should almost never ‘wait’ to cross
If you trust every driver to follow the rules exactly and have their eyes open, you can risk your life by walking out. Otherwise you might wait anyway. And the rules about right of way depend on your country and state.
Doesn’t matter if I have the right of way, I’m not walking into the other lane (going 35 mph) and hoping they don’t kill me
I’m not saying you should be reckless, but too often I see people be either uninformed or unwilling to exercise their rights. To be fair, I do write with something of an urban bias, where thankfully those kinds of speeds are much less common.
lmao. That may be true in some places but in others it requires a crosswalk. Also, the rules aren’t going to pay your hospital or funeral home bills.
By crossing I mean a crosswalk, some sort of markings on the ground
Always where? There’s a bazillion different rules about this depending on where you live
North America and Europe, I made an edit for clarity.
Generally pedestrians have the right of way at crossings (unless it’s controlled with a light) in my state and neighboring states, most crosswalks even have signs that inform you to yield to pedestrians.
yesterday a guy tried to wave me to cross then started angrily raising his hands like “FUCKING GO!” completely oblivious to the car that flew past his left side in the opposite direction
Had guy asking me to turn like that and when I refused he gave me the finger as he finally drove on. How come they hold up traffic and then get mad at you for not driving into on coming traffic?
It reveals how they weren’t actually being polite. They were doing it for themselves, not you, and you denied them their “good deed” dopamine.
You’re right of course, but in a broader sense there is literally no action that anyone takes that is altruistic. We only do things that benefit us or, rarely, our group as a whole.
“Death waits for no one!”
But seriously, glad you’re safe…
That, to me, looks like an intersection I would never want to turn left on in the first place in anything but the most deserted area.
Yep, same. I’ll bust a right and flip around a street up the road.
Yeah this is the only legal way to turn left in a road with a median like this in michigan. You have to turn right to turn left.
Which is the delusion that the US’s traffic engineers based all of their decisions on 60 years ago.
“This’ll be fine hardly anybody lives out here”
It doesn’t work when nobody lives around either.
The only way this can work is if both all cars are from the 30s, only able to move at 50 km/h, and nobody lives around.
It’s compounded by the delusion that the US’s traffic engineers base all of their decisions on now.
“It’ll be fine, it’s been here for 60 years.”
I was just thinking about interactions like this I’ve had a few times with different nice drivers, where I think they’ll be trying to wave me through (no flashing brights or anything), I’m assuming to be nice, but they’re far enough away that I can’t see them, so I’m not entirely certain of their intent. Usually it’s a busy road, so there’s very little margin for error, if I misjudge what they’re doing, then there’s gonna be a problem. And then you both end up missing a chance to go because they screwed up the process, when, if they just hadn’t tried to be nice and just went like they were supposed to, we both could’ve gone. Just follow the dumb traffic laws.
The exception to this though is at my kid’s school. To turn into the school, there’s a system that most of the parents follow and it works well, we essentially treat the entryway as a modified 3-way stop. Whoever has the easiest time to get in/get out go last in the order. So people needing to pull out and make a left turn onto the main road get first priority, then people needing to make a left turn into the school, finally people making a right-hand turn either into or out of the school go last. Anyone not going into the school just keeps going.
This system works better than when a traffic cop is occasionally posted to direct traffic (for whatever reason). With the cop, traffic gets backed up everywhere around the school and it takes everyone forever to get where they need to go. Without the cop, most people follow “the system” and traffic flows smoothly. When someone doesn’t follow the system, it’s not necessarily a surprise because they just don’t wait, but usually a car or two later follows the system and everyone goes where they need to. You’re rarely waiting for long.
When driving don’t be nice. Be predictable.
When driving, being predictable is being nice. Being nice is an accident waiting to happen.
… That sounded better in my head.
I’m taking a Smith system training and this is said constantly.
Half the people who wave you through have weird little control fetishes. They’re not being polite, they’re pursuing feelings of power. They’re the same people driving 5 mph under the speed limit in the passing lane to “keep other people from speeding”.
Well that’s certainly one of the takes of all time
I didn’t just pull it out of my ass, it’s a perspective I’ve seen espoused on this very platform, and also on Reddit.
Rhode Island in shambles
Also worst design for crossroad EVER.
I grew up in Michigan and this traffic pattern is insane to me. In intersections like that in Michigan, there is no left turn. You drive past the intersection, after which there will be an immediate turnaround. You get into the turnaround lane, go back towards the intersection, then approach the intersection from the opposite side so that you can turn right.
It’s so common that it blows my mind how it isn’t more normal nationwide. Michigan left
Even this intersection is not a good design if you ask me as it still forces you to cut who knows how many lanes, but at least it’s a bit safer. Best would be overpass, but that’s more expensive.
Looks like it might be a stroad.
Yes. The future serial killer is clearly the person that designed this shit. The one waving is just a useful idiot.
Indeed.
it sucks that is a common revision in most cities I’ve been in. Let’s just have a highway with 8 lanes and have a tiny turn lane in the middle into a major road without lights at the turn it’ll be great. Not to mention it splitting the city in half and pedestrians who don’t want to walk a mile to the next crossing cross this 8 lane highway splitting the city in half.
When I saw this sketch I immediately recollected all those traffic accident compilations from YouTube. Who in the right mind designs a road such that is cuts 8 lanes and thinks it’s safe enough.
A selfish asshole that drives predictably is safer than a generous driver that yields the row.
Do what is expected of you, not what is polite.
Rules of the road:
- Be predictable
- Nobody else is predictable
- Everyone is indifferent to your existence; you are merely a car to them
- Your phone wants to kill you - leave it alone
- The faster you go, the less of a difference 5mph makes - be safe, not fast
- FFS maintain your damn car
- Drive sober
- If you’re even remotely tired, you’re attention and reaction time is impacted more than you realize
Example warning!
This is from real life.
I hit the road late in the afternoon after working most of the day. It was a 14 hour drive. I had to be there as soon as I could. With my own car. Getting to my mom when Dad died.
I pushed myself so much that I got so tired that I kept missing the freeway exits. I was desperate to pull over and go to sleep but I was also so exhausted that I kept driving past the turn offs unintentionally. A nightmarish feeling being in that situation. I only managed to make it by going turtle slow and then turning off at the next exit, and once on a regular road I just pulled over on the shoulder and fell instantly asleep.
I was 31 and physically fit. The point is, assume you are more tired than you think you are. Take it easy on yourself. Be cautious. If I had hurt someone I couldn’t live with myself.
Been driving between Chicago to Houston in single shot trips the past few weeks while relocating. Only 25 and can still stay awake for a good 42 hours or so before I collapse, but mix in the hypnotic highway constantly running past/the car vibrations and it’s a different story.
So I always stop for coffee to make sure im mentally present before hoping on I45.
really good point. Sleep on your friend’s couch, get a motel room, sleep in your car in a Walmart parking lot… Just don’t drive when you’re tired
to expand on number 5, drive the flow speed! If traffic is moving at 55, yeah that sucks but you’re not going to make up more than a minute or so by speeding through them. And if traffic is doing 75, don’t do 55 unless you’re desperately low on gas. The savings from not maneuvering so much are huge. (Unless you’re driving EVs, they have constant power instead of gears and RPMs. Which is why they should be far more clearly marked.)
This goes especially for EVs. Wind resistance really chews up your power budget once you’re above 55mph or so. May as well run the heater with the windows down at that point.
This happened to me, I was the fast car. Here’s the dash cam video: https://streamable.com/q98ojg
I’ve got several years of experience riding motorcycles. It’s taught me to read traffic. I see a gap in a line of traffic like that, it’s either a driver who’s smart enough not to block an intersection (rare), or someone letting another someone out.
When I saw the gap I started watching it closely. I probably wouldn’t have been able react fast enough otherwise.
Damn, you have a store that specializes in maps, that’s cool
tbh there weren’t many options for them besides waiting for the entire line of cars to pass which could’ve taken forever
The guy leaving the gap tried to wave her through but I guess she didn’t see the “STOP” gesture he started throwing when I got too close.
To quote alice in wonderland:
“How long is forever?”
“Sometimes, just one second”
Dang, and they just zoom off after without a care
She had to slam on her brakes or she still would have hit me. When I looked back she made a clear “I fucked up” gesture that wasn’t caught on cam.
This intersection is the start of my daily commute. Drive to the median, clear of traffic in both directions, then check incoming traffic before proceeding
