You Ran That! plus Wrong Way - Parking Lot Edition

[Andara Bledin]

I'm just leaving work and approaching the first signal where I need to turn left. I have the red as I get to the intersection, so I stop. I glance at the other signal and see it turn red, check to see that traffic to the left is stopped and traffic to the right is stopped and start moving into the intersection as I now have the green.

I don't get very far because the guy I noticed approaching from the right has not made any attempt to slow down. He blows through the long-red light and makes a left in front of me going back the way I came and traveling way too fast for the turn. If I wasn't paranoid, I'd have pretty much t-boned him, and considering the relative weights and sizes of our vehicles, there's no way he wouldn't have rolled.

The bastard's lucky he got away with just me laying on the horn.

Then, for my second left turn, this time with a signal assist and me as the second car in the lane, the people turning from the right, again run the light. At least this time, the perpetrator entered the intersection a mere moment after the light changed, but it still made several people miss the turn because we all had to wait for them to get the heck out of the intersection.

Had to make a stop at the local store to pick up some breakfast stuff and kitty food. Made a side trip to Subway for dinner.

This lot has one-way aisles for most of it, and I'm off two aisles over from the main one (both head away from the store) and the incoming aisle that leads to the store from the street is between us.

I get ready to pull out and check to ensure nobody is coming up behind me and start to move, turning to check the other way to make sure there aren't any pedestrians trying to walk by, and I am confronted with a pair of headlights facing me.

This car is stopped, facing the wrong way, waiting for me to pull out. I do so, and this moron kind of sits there, then moves to his left and I think he's going to turn into an empty space a few down from where I was, but no, he's making to go around me.

I shake my head and give him the stink-eye as I pass, but I can tell that this guy has absolutely no idea that he's done anything wrong. I seriously think he's past the age where it's safe for him to be behind the wheel.

^-.-^

[blas]

I've never been so scared as the times where I've been on the highway or major roads in town and someone has been going the wrong way down them.

Not too long ago, someone made a left turn but accidentally turned into oncoming traffic and everyone had to back up and move out of the way for that idiot. It was really scary.

[Kogarashi]

I've had to deal with people driving the wrong way in one-way parking lots before. The Walmart Supercenter we went to before the local store converted had a lot set up with one-way aisles, and angled parking spaces to sort of enforce that. And yet people still drove the wrong way down them, and then seemed to wonder why they had trouble pulling into parking spaces that were pointed away from them. Go figure. Not to mention trying to get past my vehicle when there was no space for it.

[bhskittykatt]

We had a right-turn red-light runner last night. We had a green arrow turning left. We were the second car. The guy on the other side, watched the first car, hesitated, then tried to go for it.

Hubby stood his ground (Idiot's car = plastic Hot Wheels, Hubby's car = heavy steel tank that would have decimated Idiot and left us without a scratch). The guy wanted to get into the left lane to take a left at the next light, but Hubs forced him into the right one. He had to turn right onto the street he wanted and then had to turn around. He saved so much time in his failed attempt to cut us off.

[Raveni]

I see people go the wrong way down the one-way lane at the post office all the time. Seriously, what are you going to do? Thrown the mail out the passenger window and try to make in in the box?

[Geek King]

It's worse on city streets. We have a lot of streets that are one way, with the next parallel street going one way the other direction. I can't count the number of confused drivers I've come headlight-to-headlight with. Fortunately, no accidents so far.

It really doesn't help that some of these streets are two-way for a bit, then become one-way.

[BeeMused]

For confusing people we have one street in Hamburg that changes direction at noon and 4am. It works surprisingly well and according to the police there aren't more accidents compared to other streets. Just lots of confused non-locals.

[Andara Bledin]

We have sections of streets near various arenas that change direction for some lanes based on whether events are going on. The area near the Coliseum, Sports Arena, and Hollywood Park has those. There are bit green/red lights over the lanes that show whether they're OK for your direction at a given time.

^-.-^

[ADoyle90815]

I saw that happen at my local Trader Joe's where they really need to put a sign as it seems the big arrows on the asphalt aren't enough. The wrong way driver was lucky that nobody had pulled out of a space, as an accident would have happened because the person going the correct way wouldn't have been able to react in time.

Still, the biggest case of wrong way stupidity I saw was on a street that's one way next to the freeway just past an off ramp. As people are usually still going at freeway speeds in a 35mph road after getting off the freeway there, a head-on collision would have been really nasty. I wasn't the only one thinking as other drivers were also yelling at that car going the wrong way.

[Pagan]

I've never been so scared as the times where I've been on the highway or major roads in town and someone has been going the wrong way down them.

Unfortunately, wrong-way drivers on the interstate here is waaaaay too common.

Had one mid-December just south of Santa Fe. Wrong-way driver, who was drunk and stoned, got up to speeds of around 100mph before slamming into an ambulance driven by a 19 year old EMT. She's going to live and the passenger with the drunk/stoned lived. The impaired driver didn't.

[Project_Mars]

We have a 1-way in turn lane to a campus building from the main road that goes in front of it and the DMV right next to it. I'm surprised at how many people have gone out of said turn-in, considering there's a large Do Not Enter sign on BOTH sides of the road there. (the other entrances to the parking lot are 2-way.)

Earlier today i was tempted to try to block two idiots from turning out of it, were it not for the fact that doing so would mean the dogs would have stayed out in the cold, but i'm still tempted to make a sign telling them they are idiots for breaking the law like that and grabbing an air horn and camping out next to it to try to shame them into stopping.

or make enough of a spectacle for a cop to notice.

[Kogarashi]

She's going to live and the passenger with the drunk/stoned lived. The impaired driver didn't.

Wow, that's a first. Usually it seems in cases like this that the impaired driver is the only one who gets away alive.

[Pagan]

Wow, that's a first. Usually it seems in cases like this that the impaired driver is the only one who gets away alive.

Surprisingly, it's not the first time it's happened here. Dana Papst (2006) died from his injuries....unfortunately, he took a family of 5 with him, 3 of them kids. New Mexico seems to have more than our fair share of wrong-way drunk drivers.

Our most notorious wrong-way drunk driver, Gordon House (killed a mother and 3 daughters and permanently disabled the father on Christmas Eve 1992), walked away with barely a scratch.