New Semester = FRESH MEAT!

[BearLeeBadenaugh]

Rolling stops are something I see every day, multiple times a day. Don't even have to leave home for it.
The corner I live on is one of "THE" corners of town, hospital route, school route, something like 90%plus of traffic coming into town from the East passes the corner. T intersection, stop sign from the Leg only. I've seen a few accidents, even have the occasional car in my front yard in the winter.

Been debating putting up cams for a while, capture the highlights, like they did with the low bridge, 11foot8 I think it is.

[notalwaysright]

On my way home from work is a light with a posted "no right turn on red" sign. Mostly the light only turns for pedestrians. So no cars move for a few minutes. It's no big deal for me personally, but oh boy, other people! I can't count how many times I've been honked at for not turning against the red.

I also used to get a huge line of idiots behind me in my old town. It was 25 through downtown. For good reason! Pedestrians owned the road. Also, cops had multiple speed traps regularly in that area. It was just plain stupid to speed. I would still get the impatient lights flashing, two feet from my bumper tailing bags of fun.

Nobody in that town could deal with four way stops. It was totally beyond them. I had like three in a row to get to my house, and I worried every day that I would be in an accident. People were so oblivious. They either would do like I think Jester said, and stop waaaaaay back from the stop sign, or just creep through without bothering to stop, or be so confused that they wouldn't go even when it was their turn.

[Argabarga]

My pet peeve is people who roll up to intersections that clearly CLEARLY say, on 2 or more signs, "NO X TURN" and proceed to do exactly THAT without a care in the world....

[Sapphire Silk]

That's the great thing about stupid people driving cars.

They ensure I will never be unemployed.

[sms001]

That's the great thing about stupid people driving cars.

...and why I shudder every time someone mentions flying cars.

[Ceir]

...and why I shudder every time someone mentions flying cars.

My rebuttal to 'it's 20xx, where are my flying cars?' - people are stupid enough in two dimensions!

[BroSCFischer]

To which I immediately shot back, "You not believing a fact doesn't make it any less of a fact."

I'm a natural born skeptic, but whenever someone insists that they believe something is true, no matter what, I just remember that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was fooled by a hoax photograph of fairies.

Heck, if you ever read Double-Barreled Detective Story by Mark Twain, he inserted a deliberately nonsensical passage right in the middle of the story, and confused the hell out of his readers, including some well-educated people.

Anyone who thinks they can't be fooled, is more the fool for it.

SC

[Naaman]

I'm a natural born skeptic, but whenever someone insists that they believe something is true, no matter what, I just remember that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was fooled by a hoax photograph of fairies.

Heck, if you ever read Double-Barreled Detective Story by Mark Twain, he inserted a deliberately nonsensical passage right in the middle of the story, and confused the hell out of his readers, including some well-educated people.

Anyone who thinks they can't be fooled, is more the fool for it.

SC

Marvelously summarised by the physicist Richard Feynman:

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool."

[Jester]

I can't count how many times I've been honked at for not turning against the red.

I also used to get a huge line of idiots behind me in my old town. It was 25 through downtown. For good reason! Pedestrians owned the road. Also, cops had multiple speed traps regularly in that area. It was just plain stupid to speed.

And this brings up my Advice For Driving Through the Florida Keys, which I offer to everyone who is not familiar with it. To wit, in the Lower Keys, there is a section of US1 (the only road through the Keys) that goes through the Key Deer Habitat. For those of you who don't know, the Key Deer are a species of deer native to the Keys. They look exactly like your average white tailed deer, with one notable exception: they're about try size of a medium dog, like a German Shepherd. Basically, they're miniature deer.

But back to the Habitat. When driving through the Keys, I typically drive about 5-10 mph over the speed limit, with few worries....EXCEPT through the Key Deer Habitat, where I Do Not Speed. Which is tough, because a long section of the road is listed at 35 mph, and the road feels like it should have a higher limit, as you feel like you're just crawling along. The thing is, the Key Deer are endangered. But even if you don't give a shit about an endangered species, you still should not speed through the KDH, as the speeding tickets are around $1,200, and if you actually hit a Key Deer, it's gonna cost you, to the turn of around $25,000.

Yeah. It's no joke. Which is why, no matter who is crawling up my ass when I'm doing no faster than the posted speed limit in the KDH, no matter how much they honk, coast their lights, or tailgate me, my foot will not press heavier on the accelerator. They can pass me (illegally) if they want and haul ass, but me, I am not tempting fate or the cops along that particular stretch, thank you very much.

They either would do like I think Jester said, and stop waaaaaay back from the stop sign...

Nope. Wasn't me.

My pet peeve is people who roll up to intersections that clearly CLEARLY say, on 2 or more signs, "NO X TURN" and proceed to do exactly THAT without a care in the world....

On my last trip to Miami, my GPS told me to "take next exit." Unfortunately, at the time I was entering the highway from the left, and I saw a sign that clear as day said vehicles entering that highway from that left on ramp were absolutely prohibited from taking that next exit, probably because it would involve crossing several lanes of traffic in a very short distance, which can be dangerous for a lot of stupid drivers, which in Miami is a lot of them.

So I told my GPS to fuck off, I continued along the highway, and the bitch had to recalculate my route.

[Chromatix]

They either would do like I think Jester said, and stop waaaaaay back from the stop sign...

No, that isn't what he said.

See, there is a major design deficiency in most cars, where they put the driving position a whole yard aft of the front bumper - often further. This means that to see around a blind corner, you have to place the car further forward, so that your line of sight is not impeded. It helps to lean forward, too.

Most junctions, happily, are designed so that you can see oncoming traffic perfectly well when your bumper is on the stop line. In that position, you are not in the path of potential conflicting traffic, so you can safely stay there until the road is clear to proceed. Many junctions are also designed so that you can see from somewhat further back than that.

European - or at least British - practice is to have two different signs (and road line styles) to indicate how much visibility there is. A "Give Way" sign - or no sign but the associated markings - means that you don't have to come to a complete stop, as long as you are sure the way is clear for you. A "Stop" sign means that you *do* have to stop at the line, because that is probably the only spot where you can safely make the decision to proceed.

There isn't always much of a difference, and Stop signs are used only at the most restricted junctions in Britain - note the hedge and its effect on visibility from the road opposite. Also note that the *line* is the official stopping point, not the sign.

What Jester was complaining about, in this case, is drivers who habitually pull into the junction itself before checking for traffic. It's only slightly less dangerous than running a red light.

[sms001]

Most junctions, happily, are designed so that you can see oncoming traffic perfectly well when your bumper is on the stop line.

Lucky you!

Visibility or not, I think the inclination of many drivers is to stop, not at the sign, or at the street indicator, but at the imaginary line that borders the crossing road. This is in most cases the furthest forward you can go (for most visibility) without putting your vehicle into the actual lane of cross traffic (ostensibly). Makes sense really, why stop twice? Well, the reason to stop twice is obviously for safety considerations, but maybe as important in day-to-day driving, it's because those lines and signs are the legal places to stop.

My post earlier alluded to just that; for a variety of reasons, I had to take a road test for a second time, many years after passing the first at 16. I happened to catch the supervisor making a mark on his sheet at a stop sign. I thought and thought about it in a panic before I got to the next one and it hit me - I was stopping where the habits of ten plus years said was safe and sensible. Unfortunately, it was often several feet beyond the stop sign... tick! I corrected, stopping AT the sign and then edging up to check traffic if necessary. Passed.

[otakuneko]

I corrected, stopping AT the sign and then edging up to check traffic if necessary. Passed.

The proctor was wrong. The line is where you stop.

I make sure to stop at the line. I also make sure to push the brake hard enough to dip my front end. This makes it obvious to anyone watching (read: cops) that I have in fact stopped. I do the opposite when starting. I don't creep out, I give it enough gas there can be no misinterpreting my actions.

[notalwaysright]

What Jester was complaining about, in this case, is drivers who habitually pull into the junction itself before checking for traffic. It's only slightly less dangerous than running a red light.

Oh, okay. What I was referring to is when people stop yards and yards back from the stop sign (and white line or crosswalk) in order to "beat" another car which drives all the way up and stops in the correct place. Hopefully that makes sense.

[Chromatix]

Sort of. We don't have four-way stops over here - either one or the other of the roads is given priority in both directions, or they put in a roundabout or traffic lights.

[greek_jester]

European - or at least British - practice is to have two different signs (and road line styles) to indicate how much visibility there is. A "Give Way" sign - or no sign but the associated markings - means that you don't have to come to a complete stop, as long as you are sure the way is clear for you. A "Stop" sign means that you *do* have to stop at the line, because that is probably the only spot where you can safely make the decision to proceed.

There isn't always much of a difference, and Stop signs are used only at the most restricted junctions in Britain - note the hedge and its effect on visibility from the road opposite. Also note that the *line* is the official stopping point, not the sign.

To be fair, in those cases it's usually because the roads are following the livestock/game tracks laid down thousands of years before; we do have a tendency to just keep building on top of what's already there. For instance several of our main "A" roads follow old Roman roads. You only tend to find better junction layouts in "modern" developments i.e. those laid out in the last 20 years or so. Anything older is pot luck.

Heck, the town I live in has several Victorian buildings that were built onto the 800 year old town wall; it was easier to use it as the 4th wall rather than dismantle it! This has led to some interesting road layouts. One of my favourite work-arounds for traffic takes me through one of the original gates in the wall. Mum now demands that I go that way whenever I'm giving her a lift to my house!